Jump in communication skills led to species explosion in electric fishes
Thursday, April 28, 2011 - 15:31
in Biology & Nature
The Mormyridae, a family of African fishes that communicate by means of weak electric discharges, has more than 200 species. New work shows the fishes evolved a complex signal-processing brain before a burst of speciation. Together with other evidence the finding suggests brain evolution triggered diversification.