{"id":53699,"date":"2025-06-23T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/wildwire\/?p=53699"},"modified":"2025-05-06T08:43:07","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T12:43:07","slug":"5-animals-that-make-sparks-fly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/CA\/top-10\/5-animals-that-make-sparks-fly\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Animals that Make Sparks Fly!"},"content":{"rendered":"

What do Pikachu, Voltorb, Jolteon and the Black Ghost Knifefish have in common? They can all generate electricity! Now, as much as we\u2019d like to tell you all about electric Pok\u00e9mon, we\u2019re going to focus on some real-life electric animals that are just as interesting!<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a dive underwater and meet some fish that don\u2019t just make a splash but are also shockingly electric!<\/p>\n

Electric Eel<\/b><\/h2>\n
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Photo Credit: Opencage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Despite its name, an electric eel isn\u2019t actually an eel but a knifefish. They live in the Amazon and Orinoco basins of South America and have special cells that store electricity like a battery. When they are threatened or on the hunt, they can release their electricity all at once, giving their target quite a shock!<\/p>\n

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Electric Rays<\/b><\/h2>\n
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Photo Credit: Roberto Pillon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Relatives of the stingray, electric rays are found in oceans all over the world and you don\u2019t want to get them charged up! They have special organs which generate a strong electric zap that they use for hunting or to defend themselves against predators.<\/p>\n

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Black Ghost Knifefish<\/b><\/h2>\n

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\nFound in the waters of South America, black ghost knifefish can also generate electricity like their electric eel cousins. Their electricity isn\u2019t as powerful as the other fish on this list, but they can discharge it almost 2000 times a second! That\u2019s because it\u2019s not meant for hunting or defence, but to navigate and communicate.<\/p>\n

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Stargazers<\/b><\/h2>\n
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Photo Credit: Roberto Pillon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Stargazers certainly look strange but don\u2019t call them ugly or you might be in for a shock! When attacked, two species of stargazers (Uranoscopus and Astroscopus) can fight back, electric style! Not only can these fish zap their attackers, but they also have two large venomous spines, a combo which led one scientist to call them \u201cthe meanest things in creation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Electric Catfish<\/b><\/h2>\n
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Photo Credit: Stan Shebs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Electric catfish can also cause a spark. Found in the Nile River and the waters of western and central Africa, they are the only group of catfish that can create electricity. They use their power for hunting, defense and attack, exploring and searching for prey.<\/p>\n

Bioelectro…what?<\/b><\/h2>\n

All of these fish are bioelectrogenetic (bio-electro-genetic), which means they are living beings that can generate electricity. Unlike these fish, we have to get our electricity elsewhere and it\u2019s taking its toll on our planet.<\/p>\n

A lot of our electricity comes from burning fossil fuels, which release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and speed up climate change. That\u2019s why we need to save energy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do Pikachu, Voltorb, Jolteon and the Black Ghost Knifefish have in common? Check out these real-life animals that generate electricity! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[985,411,931],"tags":[1143,1142,1147,1144,1145,275,986,1148,1146],"class_list":{"0":"post-53699","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fts","8":"category-top-10","9":"category-all","10":"tag-bioelectrogenesis","11":"tag-electric-animals","12":"tag-electric-catfish","13":"tag-electric-eel","14":"tag-electric-ray","15":"tag-electricity","16":"tag-flip-the-switch","17":"tag-knifefish","18":"tag-stargazers"},"pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/CA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/CA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/CA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/CA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/CA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/CA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":607303,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/CA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53699\/revisions\/607303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/CA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/CA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/CA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthrangers.com\/EN\/CA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}