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Electrical And Behavioral Courtship Displays In The Mormyrid Fish Brienomyrus Brachyistius, Ryan Y. Wong, Carl D. Hopkins

Biology Faculty Publications

Mormyrid electric fish rely on the waveform of their electric organ discharges (EODs) for communicating species, sex, and social status, while they use the sequences of pulse intervals (SPIs) for communicating rapidly changing behavioral states and motivation. Little is known of electric signaling during courtship behavior because of two major difficulties: (1) the fish are not easily bred in captivity and (2) there is no reliable means of separating electric signals from several individuals in natural communication settings. Through simulating artificial rain conditions, we have successfully induced courtship and succeeded in breeding a mormyrid electric fish (Brienomyrus brachyistius) in the …