Electric fish prefers sexual charge of its own species

Rory · Nov 26, 2008

People often compare sexual attraction to a jolt of electricity, but in some animals a charged atmosphere is very literal.

Male elephant nose fish are known to lure females with the help of an electric field. Now lab experiments suggest that females fancy the electric aura of males of their own kind over the spark of closely related species.

Such electric attraction could maintain genetic differences between the nearly identical fish species, says Philine Feulner, a behavioural ecologist at the University of Sheffield, UK, who led the study.

Classified as weakly electric fish because they can't muster more than 1 volt - electric eels deliver 500-volt zaps - elephant nose fish generate an electric current with an organ in their tail made from specialised muscle cells.
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More: http://www.newscientist.com/article...n-species.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

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Electric fish prefers sexual charge of its own species

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