Biologists from Canada, the United States, Colombia and Guyana have described a new species and genus of electric knifefish from South America.
Akawaio penak. Image credit: Hernán López-Fernández.
The fish, named Akawaio penak, is a thin, eel-like electric fish. It lives in the shallow, murky waters of the upper Mazaruni River, northern Guyana.
The generic name of the fish honors Akawaio Indians that populate the upper Mazaruni.
The area is a hotspot for biological diversity, yet remains largely unexplored because of its remote location. It contains countless rivers on top of a series of uplands that have remained isolated from the rest of South America for more than 30 million years.
“The fact this area is so remote and has been isolated for such a long time means you are quite likely to find new species,” explained Prof Nathan Lovejoy from the University of Toronto Scarborough, who is a senior author of the paper describing Akawaio penak in the journal Zoologica Scripta.
Like other knifefishes, Akawaio penak has a long organ running along the base of the body that produces an electric field.
The electric field is too weak to stun prey but is instead used to navigate, detect objects and to communicate with other electric fish. This trait is advantageous given the murky habitats of the fish.
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Bibliographic information: Javier A. Maldonado-Ocampo et al. Akawaio penak, a new genus and species of Neotropical electric fish (Gymnotiformes, Hypopomidae) endemic to the upper Mazaruni River in the Guiana Shield. Zoologica Scripta, published online August 26, 2013; doi: 10.1111/zsc.12035
