330 FISHES OF WESTERN SOUTH AMERICA 
Type: Gymnotus electricus Linnaeus 
Most of Brazil and Peruvian Amazon northward 
Cylindrical in form; scaleless; frontal fontanel wanting; the basis of the anal 
fin continued around the tail, constituting a pseudo-caudal; much of the hypaxial 
musculature of the tail modified into an electric organ on each side. 
461. ELECTROPHORUS ELECTRICUS (Linnaeus) 
Gymnotus electricus Linnaeus, 1766, Syst. Nat., ed. xii, I, 427; 
Miiller and Troschel, in Schomburgk, Reisen, 1848, III, 639; 
Steindachner, 1868, Sitzb. KKK. Akad. Wiss. Wien, LVIII, 14; 
Giinther, 1870, Cat. Fish. Brit. Mus., VIII, 10, and many authors. 
Electrophorus electricus Gill, 1864, Proce. Acad. Nat. Sei. Phila., XVI, 151; 
Eigenmann, 1910, Rept. Princeton Univ. Exped. Patagonia, II, 450; 
Eigenmann, 1912, Mem. Carnegie Mus., V, 424; 
Ellis, 1913, Mem. Carnegie Mus., VI, 114, fig. 1. 
All of Amazonia northward to Venezuela, Guianas 
15419, 4, 76-130 mm., Pto. Bermudez, R. Pichis, Allen, July, 1920. 
This is the most western and most elevated record for the species. Not 
especially prevalent in most of our area. Not nearly so greatly feared by the 
inhabitants as the urinophilous Pygidiids or the piranha. 
Known to the inhabitants of eastern Peru as the angwila electrica, at least 
among the educated class. The name puraqué is given by Cox, and poraqué by 
Guenther (p. 175). Haseman’s spelling is purakee. 
This is the electric eel of fame, and the subject of numerous researches from the 
time of Faraday to the present, with numerous articles from the pens of zoologists 
and physicists alike. Many papers are summarized in Ellis’s monograph of 1913 
(p. 162). Witnesses have had all sorts of experiences with the fish, and conflicting 
reports are found in the literature as to the effects of the shock, and as to the place 
in Nature which the species occupies. 
Im Thurn (p. 137) says that the fish is numerous in the region of the penal 
colony of French Guiana, where he experienced a very painful shock from one which 
the Indians had poisoned. Herndon (p. 344) characterizes the discharge as being 
unpleasant, but not painful. He says that persons differ in their susceptibility, 
and that Captain Lee was unable to feel it at all, while a certain lady was entirely 
overcome by it. He relates further that a Mr. Norris saw a horse drinking from a 
tub in which a live Electrophorus was kept, and that such a shock was given that 
the horse was jerked quite off its feet. Up de Graff (p. 245) relates the incredible 
experience of being unable to cut the head off the fish— the shock would only knock 
the machete out of his hand, and paralyze his arm! 
Senor Paez (p. 117) can always be depended upon for a good story. He tells 
that an electric eel was found among the catch in a seine. A boy was dragging it 
along by a rope, and unintentionally drew it across the carcass of a cayman recently 
killed. An electric discharge happened to take place at that moment, and the cay- 
man ‘‘opened his huge jaws and closed them with a loud crash.”’ 
Eubank (p. 138) like others tells of the ‘““gymnotus”’ being kept in captivity, 
