Animals as Electrical Detectors

Animals as Electrical Detectors

A number of animals both produce and detect electrical signals. Fish, sharks, platypuses, and echidnas (spiny anteaters) all detect electric fields generated by nerve activity in prey. Electric eels produce their own emf through biological cells (electric organs) called electroplaques, which are arranged in both series and parallel as a set of batteries.

Electroplaques are flat, disk-like cells; those of the electric eel have a voltage of 0.15 V across each one. These cells are usually located toward the head or tail of the animal, although in the case of the electric eel, they are found along the entire body. The electroplaques in the South American eel are arranged in 140 rows, with each row stretching horizontally along the body and containing 5,000 electroplaques. This can yield an emf of approximately 600 V, and a current of 1 A—deadly.

The mechanism for detection of external electric fields is similar to that for producing nerve signals in the cell through depolarization and repolarization—the movement of ions across the cell membrane. Within the fish, weak electric fields in the water produce a current in a gel-filled canal that runs from the skin to sensing cells, producing a nerve signal. The Australian platypus, one of the very few mammals that lay eggs, can detect fields of 30 \(\cfrac{\text{mV}}{m}\), while sharks have been found to be able to sense a field in their snouts as small as 100 \(\cfrac{\text{mV}}{m}\) (this figure). Electric eels use their own electric fields produced by the electroplaques to stun their prey or enemies.

Sand tiger sharks (Carcharias taurus), like this one at the Minnesota Zoo, use electroreceptors in their snouts to locate prey. (credit: Jim Winstead, Flickr)