Introduction

Abstract

The unusual capacity of some tropical freshwater fishes (of the dominating subgroup Teleostei) to generate and sense electric signals, the discharges of their weak electric organs, was discovered by Hans Lissmann (1951, 1958) of the University of Cambridge. He demonstrated the function of an active elec-trolocation system, but, along with others, also proposed a second function, that of communication. Studies in electrical communication were pioneered by Patricia Black-Cleworth (1970), then in the laboratory of T. Bullock at the University of California in La Jolla, and Peter Moller (1970), then in the laboratory of T. Szabo at the CNRS research institute and the Collège de France in Paris.