Electric eels and knifefish suppress electric signals to avoid detection, UCF study finds

In aquatic ecosystems, some species use active sensing systems, emitting echolocation sounds or electric fields to navigate dark or murky waters.

For electric eels and their weakly electric knifefish prey, generating electric fields helps them navigate and hunt, but those same signals can also reveal their location.

UCF researchers found that both electric eels and knifefish strategically suppress and resume their electric signals to avoid detection.

The findings provide new insight into how animals balance sensing their surroundings while remaining hidden from predators or prey, a challenge that also appears in technologies such as sonar and radar.