1.

Electric Eel

Despite its name and serpentine appearance, the electric eel is not an eel at all, but
rather a type of electric fish. Like other electric fish, they’re nearly always producing low-
voltage pulses to sense their environment. But they are more infamous for their ability to
generate extremely high-voltage shocks to stun or kill prey and defend themselves.

Electric eels can grow to over eight feet (2.4 meters) long and weigh nearly 50 pounds
(22.7 kilograms). An eel this size can emit a burst of over 600 volts, five times the voltage
of a standard U.S. wall socket.

Human deaths from electric eel shocks are

rare, but have occurred. Repeated shocks can
cause respiratory and heart failure, and
people have drowned after being stunned by
electric eels.

2. Elephantnose Fish

First of all, that’s not its nose—it’s actually an

elongated chin. The scientific term for this
specialized organ is the Schnauzenorgan, and
it’s covered in sensors attuned to detecting
electric fields.

The elephantnose fish belongs to a group of

electric fish native to Africa. Due to its poor eyesight, it must find food and navigate its
surroundings by generating an electrical field through its tail. It then senses any changes
to that field with its Schnauzenorgan.

The organ is so sensitive that the elephantnose fish can tell the difference between living
and dead bugs buried up to 0.8 inches (two centimeters) in the seafloor. They can also
use the Schnauzenorgan to determine distances and distinguish between materials,
shapes, and sizes of objects.

Elephantnose fish also have an enormous brain relative to their body size, and von der
Emde says the fish are very intelligent, easily learning new tasks and capable of
understanding abstract concepts. “When ‘bored,’ they play with objects such as stones,
air bubbles, or tubes that we put in their tanks,” he says.
 3. Platypus

The mystery of how platypuses catch their prey in murky water at night, with their eyes,
ears, and nostrils closed, puzzled scientists for years. Then researchers discovered that,
unlike any other land mammal, platypuses
use the electrical impulses emitted by their
prey to home in on a meal.

A platypus’ bill is covered in nearly 40,000

electricity sensors—or electroreceptors—
arranged in a series of stripes, which helps
them localize prey. All animals produce
electric fields due to the activity of their
nerves and muscles. So when the platypus
digs in the bottom of streams with its bill, its
electroreceptors detect these tiny currents,
allowing it to tell living prey from inanimate
objects.

4. Sharks

All sharks and rays can detect electric fields, thanks to the hundreds to thousands of tiny
pores, filled with an electrically conductive jelly, that pepper their head.

Sharks primarily use their electric sense to find food. “Sharks can use other senses, like
olfaction, to home in on prey and then do the final localization directed by their electric
fields,” says David Bodznick, a biologist at Wesleyan University in Middletown,
Connecticut. “It works well when prey is buried in the sand or at nighttime or in murky
water.”

Hammerhead sharks use their heads like giant detectors, sweeping them over the
seafloor to sense the electrical impulses of buried fish. “It may be that the big, broad
head of the hammerhead allows it to more accurately triangulate the position of prey,”
says Stephen Kajiura, a biologist at Florida
Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

Sharks’ electrosense appears to be the most

sensitive in the animal kingdom, capable of
detecting voltage gradients as small as one
billionth of a volt. It’s so sensitive, in fact, that
scientists have trouble measuring it with
even the most sophisticated instruments.