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Electric Eel

Electrophorus electricus · medium

The electric eel is not an eel. It is a knifefish, more closely related to catfish than to any true eel, and it generates the strongest electrical discharge of any known animal — measured at around 860 volts in one species described as recently as 2019.

Most of its body is a battery. Three specialised organs made of stacked electrocyte cells occupy the great majority of its length, leaving the actual internal organs crowded into the front fifth of the animal. It produces two kinds of discharge: weak pulses used continuously for navigation and communication in murky water, and high-voltage bursts for hunting and defence.

The hunting behaviour is more sophisticated than simple shocking. A pair of rapid pulses causes involuntary muscle contraction in hidden prey, making it twitch and reveal itself; a sustained volley then immobilises it. Eels have also been recorded rearing out of the water to press their chin against a large animal, delivering the charge directly and more effectively than through water.

They live in the slow, oxygen-poor waters of the Amazon and Orinoco basins, and are obligate air-breathers, surfacing every few minutes to gulp air through a heavily vascularised mouth.

Where it lives

Worml lists the electric eel as native to 8 countries — Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. Its habitat is murky, slow-moving amazon and orinoco waters.

Ranges here are reduced to whole countries for playability and exclude introduced populations — see about the data for what that simplification leaves out.

In the game

Electric Eel is rated medium and appears on Worm Wednesday. To solve the round you need to find any 4 of its 8 listed countries. How scoring works →

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