Electrocommunication
![Different weakly electric fishes.](/Images/godic/202501/10/Electric_fishes4213.png")
![A video example of an electric courtship signal in an African weakly electric fish, Paramormyrops sp. recorded in Gabon. This audio recording was made from a male courting a female. The original recording is of the electric signal but here it is converted into sound by the loud speaker. The upper trace shows an oscillogram of the original waveform, the lower figure is a sound spectrogram of the same recording. A photo of the species is shown in the inset panel. The male produces](/Images/godic/202501/10/-Vadamans_rasp_movie_1.theora.ogv4213.jpg")
![Electric organ](/Images/godic/202501/10/Elektroplax_Rochen4213.png")
![Electric field built up by a dipole system of charges. Electric fish generate an electric field in the same manner.](/Images/godic/202501/10/VFPt_dipole_electric.svg4213.png")
Electrocommunication is the communication method used by weakly electric fishes. Weakly electric fishes are a group of animals that utilize a communicating channel that is "invisible" to most other animals: electric signaling. Electric fishes communicate electrically by one fish generating an electric field and a second individual receiving that electric field with its electroreceptors. The receiving side will interpret the signal frequencies, waveforms, and delay, etc. The best studied species are two freshwater lineages- the African Mormyridae and the South American Gymnotiformes. While weakly electric fish are the only group that have been identified to carry out both generation and reception of electric fields, other species either generate signals or receive them, but not both. Animals that either generate or receive electric fields are found only in aquatic (or at least moist) environments due to large resistance of all other media (e.g. air). So far, communication between electric fish has been identified mainly to serve the purpose of conveying information in