The Klute’s Ocean Minute: Electroreception!

How many #senses do you have?

Five! Taste, Touch, Hearing, Smell, Sight.

#Sharks have two more! #lateralline sense (which detects vibrations in the water) and #electroreception (which detects the electrical fields all marine fish, birds, reptiles, invertebrates, and mammals emit).

Watch this video! Notice how the first big #shark you see (an Indo-Pacific #lemonshark) seems very interested in one of the members of the dive team, even with the smell of food all around here (this is a incentivized feeding aggregation in #beqalagoon, #fiji). She even comes around for a second pass!

Watch the second shark (a big chonk of a #bullshark). She is attracted to the #diver’s camera too… but then the strobe goes off! She immediately backs off because the strobe overstimulates her #ampullaeoflorenzini (a electro sensory organ that all #Chondrichthyes - sharks, rays, chimeras - have).

A shark relies on electroreception right before they engage their sense of taste and touch to determine if something is food - is that something you’d want to have?