Some blind elephantnose fish produce weak electric signals that are used for detecting objects in their surroundings – a phenomenon called active electrolocation. These fish have specialized electric organs that discharge either in pulses or in a wave-like fashion, depending on the species. Although discharges follow one another almost continuously throughout the life of the fish, their power level is much too low to be detected by human handlers but potent enough to create a stable electric field around the body of the fish. When an object enters into this electric field, it causes distortions in the current that are detected by electroreceptor organs distributed over the fish's skin. A weak electric system may have several uses, including the exploration of novel environments. For example, blind elephantnose fish can easily find the only opening that allows them to cross through a newly installed partition within their aquarium, even though they cannot see it with their eyes. Their electric sense must be implicated because when these individuals become electrically silent (unable to use their electric system through denervation of their electric organs), they can no longer find the opening. During the 1970s, biologists became interested in the role of the weak electric system not only as a means of electrolocation but also as a means of electrical communication between individual fish. Communication is possible because the rate and waveform of the electric discharges can vary between species, between sexes, between individuals, or even between situations in the same individual. Moreover, some fish can temporarily interrupt their normally continuous train of discharges, and these pauses can be full of meaning. The effective range of communication by electric signals can reach a little over 1 meter depending on water resistance. In terms of functions, electric communication is strikingly similar to acoustical vocalization (vocal sounds). Some of these functions are concerned with reproductive activity. In some species, males switch to new electric calls during courtship, resuming their regular programming only after the mating season is over. In species in which each sex has its own distinctive pattern of discharges, females are attracted to the pattern of males, and males to the pattern of females. Females can even be induced to release their eggs in the vicinity of electrodes that imitate a male signal¨Dthe spark of love. As expected, through natural selection, both males and females prefer the electric pattern of their own species to that of other species. Other functions relate to aggression. Aggressive individuals often precede their attacks with an increase in discharge rate, whereas submissive fish may stop emitting altogether. This submissive behavior seems to work. Researchers have found that individuals rendered electrically silent through denervation of their electric organs are seldom attacked by dominant fish. Finally, individual recognition can also be based on electric signatures. In banded knifefish, territory neighbors recognize each other through individually distinctive discharge waveforms. The fact that weak electric fish can use their electric sense to communicate with one another leads to an interesting question: How can a fish distinguish between its own electric bursts and those from another fish In blind elephantnose fish, the problem is solved by the presence of two types of electroreceptors. One of these two types is automatically and briefly shut down each time the fish discharges. Therefore, any signal picked up by these electroreceptors has to come from another animal. Elephantnose fish also have the habit of echoing the discharges of other individuals. They discharge their own electric organ a fixed time after sensing the electric signal of another fish. This response time is extremely short – approximately 12 milliseconds – probably the most rapid form of communication in the animal kingdom. Knifefish also display a peculiar behavior called the jamming avoidance response. This response allows knifefish to prevent interference with their electric system when they meet other knifefish. In order to avoid confusion, an electric fish must somehow keep track of the discharge rate of another knifefish while remaining aware of its own. If the two rates are too close, each fish alters its frequency of discharge so as to widen the gap between the two. In a sense, they do not want to get their wires crossed. In the laboratory, it is possible, using artificial signals, to force a knifefish to decrease its frequency of firing just by exposing it to a high but slowly decreasing signal rate or to increase its frequency of firing by switching to a low but slowly rising signal rate.