--- title: "Volta Electric Eel (Electrophorus voltai) | AnimalTracks.wiki" description: "The biological super-battery that hit 860 volts, the strongest electric discharge known from any living animal." image: "https://animaltracks.wiki/images/animals/electric-eel-1.webp" published: "2026-08-30" updated: "2026-09-12" --- # Volta Electric Eel (*Electrophorus voltai*) > **Status**: Checked against 7 sources, listed under Sources below. > **Tagline**: The biological super-battery that hit 860 volts, the strongest electric discharge known from any living animal. > **Soundtrack Vibe**: Classic Funk, Soul & Disco // Daft Punk, "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" > **Soundtrack Links**: [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/5W3cjX2J3tjhG8zb6u0qHn) | [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yydNF8tuVmU) > **Vibe Match**: A bio-battery of stacked electrocytes firing up to 860 volts, with shocks that help it deter predators such as caiman. ## Biological Superpowers & Stats - **Taxonomy**: *Electrophorus voltai* - **Danger Level**: Deadly - **Conservation Status**: Least Concern ([IUCN Red List](https://doi.org/10.2305/iucn.uk.2021-3.rlts.t204715926a204826094.en)) - **Superpower**: Bioelectrogenesis discharging up to 860 volts of direct electrical current - **Habitat**: Rocky shield rivers and streams, including rapids and waterfalls, in generally north-flowing rivers of the Brazilian Shield and south-flowing rivers of the Guiana Shield, South America - **Diet**: Mainly fish, plus crustaceans, insects, amphibians and small mammals - **Tags**: fish, savanna, mountains, freshwater, apex-predator, electric-discharge ## Natural History & Behavior ## The Strongest Bio-Electricity on Earth Despite its name and snake-like body, the **Volta Electric Eel** (*Electrophorus voltai*) is actually a knifefish, more closely related to catfish than to true eels. Described as a new species in 2019, it holds the record for the strongest electric discharge measured in any living animal: a single specimen jolted out **860 volts**, nearly four times the voltage of a standard UK plug socket. In 1997, a 23-year-old man bathing in a Brazilian river convulsed after touching an electric eel, went under and likely drowned. A 2025 medical report calls it the first reliable clinical record of a death caused by an electric eel, and names Volta's electric eel as the most likely species. > **Living batteries** About 80% of an electric eel's body is taken up by three electric organs, built from stacks of electrocytes, modified muscle cells that each have a positive and a negative side. ## High-Voltage Remote Muscle Control When hunting in dark, murky water, an adult electric eel gives off weak pulses of around 10 volts to sense its surroundings. When it suspects prey is hiding nearby, it often fires a doublet, two rapid high-voltage pulses that hijack the prey's nervous system and make its muscles twitch involuntarily, giving away roughly where it is hiding. Between 20 and 40 milliseconds after the twitch, a full high-voltage volley freezes the prey in place and the eel strikes. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### How much voltage can an electric eel actually produce? In 2019, researchers described a new species, Volta's electric eel (Electrophorus voltai), and recorded one specimen discharging 860 volts, well above the 650 volts previously reported for electric eels. That makes Volta's electric eel the strongest living bioelectricity generator known. *(Source: [de Santana et al. 2019]())* ### Is an electric eel actually an eel? No. Despite its common name and serpentine form, the electric eel is a South American knifefish belonging to the order Gymnotiformes. It is more closely related to catfishes and carp than to the "true" eels in the order Anguilliformes. *(Source: [Natural History Museum, London]())* ### Why does an electric eel not shock itself when discharging? No one had worked it out as of 2019, when a scientific review of electric eel behavior listed how an eel protects its own nervous system from its high-voltage discharge among the questions that remain to be investigated. *(Source: [Catania 2019]())* ### Can an electric eel jump out of the water to shock land animals? Yes. When threatened, an electric eel can leap partly out of the water and press its chin, the most positively charged part of its body, against the threat while firing off volleys of high-voltage discharges. The higher it rises, the more of its power is diverted through the threat instead of into the water. The behavior supports a famous account from March 1800, when the explorer Alexander von Humboldt watched fishermen herd horses into a pool of electric eels, which attacked by pressing themselves against the horses while discharging. *(Source: [Catania 2016]())* ## Sources 1. [de Santana et al. (2019). Unexpected species diversity in electric eels with a description of the strongest living bioelectricity generator. Nature Communications.]() 2. [Electric eel. Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.]() 3. [How do electric eels work? Natural History Museum, London.]() 4. [Catania (2016). Leaping eels electrify threats, supporting Humboldt's account of a battle with horses. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.]() 5. [Catania (2019). The Astonishing Behavior of Electric Eels. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience.]() 6. [Haddad Júnior et al. (2025). Two Clinical Records of Human Injuries with a Death caused by Electric Eels Electrophorus spp. Gill, 1864. Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical.]() 7. [Lyons (2021). Electrophorus voltai. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2021: e.T204715926A204826094.]() *Published August 30, 2026. 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