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Newly Discovered Electric Eel in Amazon Shocks with Most Powerful Voltage Ever Recorded

There is so much biodiversity in the Amazon rainforest that scientists identify a new plant or animal species there on average every other day.

Their latest discovery is particularly shocking. What scientists thought was one species of electric eel is actually three, and one of the newly identified species can deliver the strongest electric shock of any known animal, the Smithsonian reported.

“These fish grow to be seven to eight feet long. They’re really conspicuous,” study leader and Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History research associate C. David de Santana said in a press release. “If you can discover a new eight-foot-long fish after 250 years of scientific exploration, can you imagine what remains to be discovered in that region?”

The study, published in Nature Communications Tuesday, was based on 107 fish samples taken from the Amazon region between 2014 and 2017, The New York Times reported. (Electric eels, despite their name, actually belong to the knifefish family). The scientists then compared the specimens’ morphology, DNA and electric voltage.

The result? The previously known Electrophorus electricus was not the only species of electric eel. There was also Electrophorus varii and Electrophorus voltai. The three species have slightly different skull shapes, pectoral fins and pore arrangements, according to the Smithsonian.

What’s more, Electrophorus voltai can deliver a charge of 860 volts. The highest charge previously recorded from an electric eel was 650 volts, four times that of an average U.S. wall socket, The New York Times explained.

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