Social predation—when groups of predators coordinate actions to find and capture prey—is a common tactic among mammals but comparatively rare in fishes. We report the unexpected social predation by electric eels, an otherwise solitary predator in the Amazon rainforest. Observations made in different years and recorded on video show electric eels herding, encircling shoals of small nektonic fishes, and launching joint predatory high‐voltage strikes on the prey ball. These findings challenge the hypothesis that electric eels may have a single foraging strategy and extend our knowledge on social predation to an organism that employs high‐voltage discharge for hunting. Thereby offering a novel perspective for studies on the evolutionary interplay between predatory and escape tactics.

中文翻译：

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电鳗的社会掠夺

社交捕食是一群哺乳动物共同的策略，当掠食者群体协调行动以寻找和捕捉猎物时，则在鱼类中相对较少见。我们报告了鳗鱼出人意料的社会掠夺，而鳗鱼是亚马逊雨林中原本孤独的掠食者。在不同年份进行的观察并记录在视频中，显示了鳗鱼成群，围捕小型nektonic鱼的浅滩以及在猎物球上发动联合掠夺性高压打击。这些发现挑战了以下假设：电鳗可能具有单一觅食策略，并将我们对社会掠夺的知识扩展到利用高压放电进行狩猎的生物。从而为掠夺和逃避战术之间的进化相互作用研究提供了新颖的视角。