Malapterurus electricus
(Gmelin, 1789) · speciesAt a glance
Sources12 archives
Databases and archives Malapterurus electricus's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation14 languages↗
Animal Diversity WebUniv. of Michigan MZspecies account↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility296 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI8 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics20 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinegenome & karyotype↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
Catalogue of LifeCOLtaxonomy↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
Malapterurus electricus is a thickset fish with six mouth barbels and a single fin on its back, just anterior to the rounded tail fin. It is brownish or grayish, irregularly spotted with black, and attains a length and weight of about 1.2 metres and 23 kg M. electricus is capable of generating and controlling the discharge of up to 450 volts of electricity. It uses its power to defend itself and to capture prey.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology2
Life cycle & reproduction1
Habitat & environment2
Uses & economy1
Other traits1
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Malapterurus electricus has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
The complete instruction manual Malapterurus electricus carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Sequencing statusassembly quality — how far to trust these numbers
Assembly level tells you how finished the sequence is — from fragmented contigs, through scaffolds, up to a full chromosome-level assembly. BUSCO % estimates completeness: the share of genes expected to be present that were actually found. These describe the data quality, not the organism.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil.
Record type296 records
Origin
Range
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions13 of 21 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| FishBaselocation not on record | 89 |
| Royal Museum for Central Africalocation not on record | 56 |
| Paris, FR | 16 |
| Stockholm, SE | 9 |
| Frankfurt am Main | 6 |
| South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversitylocation not on record | 6 |
| Washington, US | 4 |
| 4 | |
| CASlocation not on record | 3 |
| Cambridge, US | 2 |
| New Haven, US | 1 |
| Montgomery, US | 1 |
| Museo civico La Terra e l'Uomo di Crocetta del Montellolocation not on record | 1 |
| Vancouver, CA | 1 |
| Toronto, CA | 1 |
| Berkeley, US | 1 |
| SNSB-Zoologische Staatssammlung Münchenlocation not on record | 1 |
| Louisiana State University, Museum of Zoologylocation not on record | 1 |
| Ohio State University - Fish Division, Columbus, OH (OSUM)location not on record | 1 |
| Ann Arbor, US | 1 |
| Chicago, US | 1 |
Where the DNA of Malapterurus electricus was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.