But knifefish share this sensory system: in order to find their own food, they\u00a0also\u00a0send out electronic pulses.<\/p>\n
![\"Electric](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Electric-eel-scaled.jpg\")
Electric eels (Electrophorus varii) are top predators in Amazonian rainforest streams.\u00a0Credit: Lok Poon<\/p>\n
Because both predator and prey have specialist electricity-sensing organs, they can detect one another\u2019s electronic pulses. This led scientists to wonder if electric eels and knifefish might ever \u2018silence\u2019 their own electric pulses in order to conceal themselves from one another.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea emerged from realising how often electric eels and knifefish encountered each other in this small rainforest stream,\u201d Lok Poon, lead author of the\u00a0study<\/a>, tells BBC Wildlife. \u201cIt seems intuitive: if sensing reveals your presence, perhaps it is better not to sense at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Infrared camera records an electric eel cruising through the stream at night. Credit: Lok Poon<\/p>\n The researchers put electrodes in an Amazonian stream, which recorded the electronic soundscape of the habitat. Because each species has a distinct electronic signature, the team could tell which \u2018electric species\u2019 were present.<\/p>\n The team found that, in over half of encounters where eels could potentially detect knifefish electricity, eels stopped emitting their own electronic pulses. This silence often came before the eel produced a high-voltage discharge \u2013 the killer strike. Similarly, sand knifefish ‘switched off\u2019 their electricity when electric eels were in the vicinity.<\/p>\n This shows that both electric eels and their knifefish prey adopt a strategy of \u2018electric silence\u2019: electric eels hunt \u2018blind\u2019 so they can evade detection by knifefish and stealthily sneak up on them, while some species of knifefish, when they detect eels, ‘switch off\u2019 their sensory system so they are less visible to the eels.<\/p>\n But there is a cost to switching off their electronic pulses: both the electric eel and the knifefish are less able to navigate and hunt successfully. They therefore switch between being silent and emitting electronic pulses.<\/p>\n In a case of convergent evolution<\/a>, this is exactly what orcas do when they hunt other toothed whales. Orcas<\/a> use echolocation<\/a> to detect other whales, but these whales also use echolocation and can therefore \u2018eavesdrop\u2019 on the orcas. The orcas and their prey therefore adopt similar tactics, where both switch between echolocating and stealthy silence.<\/p>\n Given their shared electric sense, electric eels and knifefish can intercept each other\u2019s actively generated signals. This creates an interesting stealth dynamic, in which both sides try to detect the other without being detected. Credit: Lok Poon<\/p>\n Top image credit: Lok Poon <\/p>\n More wildlife stories from around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After sunset in the Amazon rainforest, a war of stealth begins in the rivers and streams. Electric eels…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[85,46,141,386],"class_list":["post-428962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Amazonian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Rainforest-stream-1-scaled.jpeg\")
Amazonian rainforest streams are typically small and shallow, but they support incredible fish diversity. At night, electric fish and other nocturnal animals become active. Credit: Lok Poon<\/p>\n