Electric Knifefish Uses Electric Field to Communicate, Navigate and Hunt
Posted on April 9, 2012
The electric eel can generate enough current to stun its prey, but there are also fish that generate weak amounts of electricity. The electric knifefish from Ecuador is one of these fish. Johns Hopkins University neuroethologist Eric Fortune traveled to Ecuador to study the fish in their native habitat. He placed acoustical instruments in the water so he could record their electric hums.
Fortune says, "Weakly electric fish are unique in that they produce and detect electric fields. They use these electric fields in social communication and to detect objects."
Researchers at Johns Hopkins are using Fortune's field data to help with their own observations of knifefish in the lab. Mechanical engineer Noah Cowan and the rest of the team are studying the knifefish to learn more about how the brains of animals work to control their behavior.
Cowan says, "We see how they interact in the wild and then we create very controlled experiments in the lab that allow us to probe specific scientific questions. Researchers want to better understand how these fish use their electric field as a sixth sense, not only to communicate with each other, but to navigate their surroundings and find their next meal."
Cowan says the knifefish has an organ in its tail that "generates an electric field that envelops the entire animal." The fish also has voltage sensors all over the surface of its skin.
Here is a report on the research from Miles O'Brien. Take a look: