Mormyrid fish as models for investigating sensory-motor integration

Weakly electric fish are the definition of all that is strange and amazing about the natural world. They have a special sensibility that we don’t have. To navigate, forage, and communicate in their dark, aquatic surroundings, these fish produce and sense low voltage electric fields. The Gymnotiformes from the Neotropics and the Mormyriformes from Africa are two lineages that have separately gained this remarkable capacity. Weakly electric fish come in many different species and display a wide variety of morphologies, electric signalling patterns, eating behaviour, and levels of sociality. Since the 1950s, significant progress has been made in our knowledge of how these fish use electrosensing. Currently, weakly electric fish are significant models in the life sciences, advancing the domains of

Figure 1. The Peter’s elephantnose fish (Gnathonemus petersii), a weakly electric fish which uses low voltage electric fields for navigation, foraging, and communication. This species is found across central and western Africa. They are characterised by their elongated chin appendage shown here (known as a Schnauzenorgan). They use their Schnauzenorgan for a variety of tasks, such as finding prey buried under sediment. Photo by Sarah Skeels