- Animals
- ›Chordates
- ›Vertebrates
- ›Ray-finned Fishes
- ›Carps, Characins, Catfishes and Allies
- ›Neotropical Knifefishes
- ›Nakedback Knifefishes
- ›Electric Eels

Electric Eels
Electrophorus
In electromagnetism, an electrophorus or electrophore is a simple, manual, capacitive, electrostatic generator used to produce charge via the process of electrostatic induction. A first version of it was invented in 1762 by Swedish professor Johan Carl Wilcke. Italian scientist Alessandro Volta improved and popularized the device in 1775, and is sometimes erroneously credited with its invention. The word electrophorus was coined by Volta from the Greek ήλεκτρον, elektron, and φορεύς, phoreus, meaning 'electricity bearer'.
4 branches of this genus, most-observed first · about 4 known species

Electric Eel
speciesElectrophorus electricus

Vari’s Electric Eel
speciesElectrophorus varii

Volta’s Electric Eel
speciesElectrophorus voltai

Peruvian Electric Eel
speciesElectrophorus multivalvulus
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Electrophorus in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 88125.