Some African fish signal their amorous intentions by exchanging bursts of electrical impulses, a new study has found.

The behavior is similar to the courtship duets of songbirds, say researchers who studied the African electric fish known to scientists as Brienomyrus brachyistius.

It is really hard to get these finicky fish to breed in the lab, and also hard to separate out the pulses from more than one fish to tell whose discharges are from whom," Hopkins said.

He and undergraduate Ryan Wong finally succeeded on both fronts, employing a variety of tricks including sprinkling tanks with artificial rain to simulate breeding-season c

The most surprising observation, Wong said, "was that there appears to be electrical 'duetting' occurring between the sexes during courtship."