Did you know that some animals hunt using electricity?

The ability to sense and generate electricity sounds like the superpower of a comic book hero, but it’s actually a useful ability that some aquatic animals use to hunt their prey!

All living things generate a weak electrical field; your heart is beating now because tiny electrical signals are telling all the parts of your heart to beat together. Even the thoughts you are thinking right this minute are tiny electrical signals jumping between the cells in your brain. But sensing these electrical signals is difficult.

Electricity doesn’t travel well though air, but it does travel well through water. That’s why some fish actually have organs that sense the electric fields generated by other living things in the water, and will use that electric field to target and attack their prey. Sharks are one of the most sensitive to electrical fields, and many underwater electric cables have been damaged because sharks sense the electric current in the cable and attack!

Some fish don’t just sense electricity, they also make it! By generating an electric field, the fish can sense things around them that conduct electricity (like other fish), and resist it (like rocks), and can use electricity to hunt and navigate.

But it isn’t just fish that sense electricity. There is one mammal group that also uses electrolocation: echidnas and platypuses! The platypus has the best sense of electrolocation. When a platypus dives, it closes its eyes, nose, and ears, and digs its bill into the mud at the bottom of the water. The sensors in its bill can detect the electrical fields of its prey and lead it straight to dinner! They can even be fooled into eating artificial shrimp if an electrical current is passed through it!