New Electric Knifefish Species Discovered in Brazil's Negro River
Posted on April 22, 2014
Researchers have discovered a new genus and species of electric knifefish in several tributaries of the Negro River in Brazil. The fish produce electric discharges in distinct pulses that can be detected by some other fish. Some researchers believe the fish can use electric fields as a sixth sense. The new species, Procerusternarchus pixuna, was discovered by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (INPA), Brazil.
Professor Cristina Cox Fernandes at UMass Amherst, with Adalia Nogueira and Jose Antonio Alves-Gomes of INPA, describe the new bluntnose knifefish in the current issue of the journal Proceedings of the Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
Fernandes says there were fewer than 100 electric fish species described when she first began her studies of the fishes in the early 1990s. Today there are nearly twice as many. She says, "As environmental changes affect rivers worldwide and in the Amazon region, freshwater fauna are under many different pressures. Fish populations are dwindling due to the pollution, climate change, the construction of hydroelectric plants and other factors that result in habitat loss and modification. As such the need to document the current fish fauna has become all the more pressing."
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