A new electric fish genus, the Akawaio penak, has recently been discovered in the murky, shallow waters of the upper Mazaruni River in South America.

The new type of electric knifefish is electrifying...literally. And it's just the latest find in a region that has remained largely unexplored by scientists.

The area has remained largely unexplored for 30 million years. The isolation of the region by numerous rivers has lead to a large amount of new biological discoveries.

"The fact this area is so remote and has been isolated for such a long time means you are quite likely to find new species," said Nathan Lovejoy, a member of the research team and professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough.

The fish, a type of electric knifefish, was confirmed by DNA sequencing to be a new genus of electric fish.

"It is somewhat eel-like, but the tail of the fish tapers off into basically a point," Lovejoy said of the fish, which he suspects is nocturnal. "The eyes of the fish are very small so that suggests it doesn't rely on eyesight much."

The Akawaio penak was identified from tissue samples collected by an international team working in a remote part of Guyana, South America. It was found in shallow waters along the Mazaruni River.

Researched revealed that the fish was so distinct that it is a new, unique genus (the classification level that is below a "family" but above a "species").

The Akawaio penak is similar to other electric knifefish, scientists say. It features "a long organ running along the base of the body that produces an electric field."

The electric fish wouldn't pose a danger to humans. Instead, it is used for communication with other fish, to locate objects, and to travel through the water.

Because the fish lives in dark, murky waters, the fact that it has an electric field has been a boon-and made it successfully adapt to its habitat.

"When objects enter the electric field, they produce a distortion in the field and the fish can then detect that distortion," Lovejoy said.

The fish was named after the Akawaio American Indians, who live mainly in the upper Mazaruni. The finding was published in a paper in the journal Zoolocia Scripta.