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Research Article
Efficient high-voltage protection in the electric catfish
Georg Welzel, Stefan Schuster
Journal of Experimental Biology 2021 224: jeb239855 doi: 10.1242/jeb.239855 Published 23 February 2021
Georg Welzel
Department of Animal Physiology, University of Bayreuth, Universitätsstrasse 30, 95447 Bayreuth, Germany
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  • ORCID record for Georg Welzel
  • For correspondence: stefan.schuster@uni-bayreuth.de georg.welzel@uni-bayreuth.de
Stefan Schuster
Department of Animal Physiology, University of Bayreuth, Universitätsstrasse 30, 95447 Bayreuth, Germany
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  • For correspondence: stefan.schuster@uni-bayreuth.de georg.welzel@uni-bayreuth.de
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ABSTRACT

For thousands of years, starting with detailed accounts from ancient Egypt, the African electric catfish (Malapteruridae) has been renowned for its ability to hunt and to defend itself with powerful electric shocks. Surprisingly, the degree to which electric catfish are protected against their own or external electric shocks, how specific any protection would be to the species-specific waveform and whether a discharging catfish has to actively prepare for the onset of its high-voltage discharges has never been analysed. Here, we used digital high-speed video to record catfish during their own discharges or as they were exposed to external discharges, employing goldfish to carefully calibrate the efficiency of all discharges. Electric catfish show a remarkable degree of protection against high voltages: both self-produced and external electric shocks that heavily affected control goldfish failed to evoke involuntary muscle contraction or to affect sensorimotor processing. Even a commercial electrofishing device, set to efficiently immobilise and narcotise fish, failed to have any effect on the electric catfish. Our findings rule out several protective mechanisms and demonstrate a highly efficient and versatile shielding whose nature is presently unclear.

Footnotes

  • Competing interests

    The authors declare no competing or financial interests.

  • Author contributions

    Conceptualization: G.W., S.S.; Methodology: G.W.; Validation: G.W., S.S.; Formal analysis: G.W., S.S.; Investigation: G.W.; Resources: S.S.; Writing - original draft: G.W., S.S.; Visualization: G.W.

  • Funding

    The project was funded by overheads from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG grant Schu1470/8).

  • Supplementary information

    Supplementary information available online at https://jeb.biologists.org/lookup/doi/10.1242/jeb.239855.supplemental

  • Received October 23, 2020.
  • Accepted December 24, 2020.
  • © 2021. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
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Keywords

  • Electronarcosis
  • Strongly electric fish
  • Electric shock
  • Predator
  • Novelty response

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Research Article
Efficient high-voltage protection in the electric catfish
Georg Welzel, Stefan Schuster
Journal of Experimental Biology 2021 224: jeb239855 doi: 10.1242/jeb.239855 Published 23 February 2021
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Research Article
Efficient high-voltage protection in the electric catfish
Georg Welzel, Stefan Schuster
Journal of Experimental Biology 2021 224: jeb239855 doi: 10.1242/jeb.239855 Published 23 February 2021

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