2023-12-04 17:02:22
According to some, dolphins are particularly sensitive animals. However, this is not what would allow them to capture the beat of our hearts. But indeed a physical capacity that researchers have just demonstrated in the Bottlenose Dolphin. It can detect electric fields.
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Bottlenose dolphins — which we sometimes call bottlenose dolphins — have sort of dimples on their beak-shaped snouts. They are pricked with mustaches when they come into the world. But these fall quickly. And scientists were previously unaware of the usefulness of the remaining dimples. But a team from the University of Rostock and the Nuremberg Zoo (Germany) reports in the Journal of Experimental Biology how they understood. Those that scientists call vibrissal crypts are in reality nothing other than particularly sensitive electroreceptors.
Bottlenose dolphins detect weak electric fields
Experiments that the researchers carried out on two captive specimens show that they can detect extremely weak electric fields. From 2.4 to 5.5 microvolts per centimeter. Scientists had already discovered this ability in another dolphin, the common dolphin of Guiana. And to confirm its usefulness in nature in bottlenose dolphins, further work will be necessary.
Scientists suspect, however, that this ability to detect electric fields could help dolphins discover small prey hidden in the sand. In the 1990s, they had in fact observed a strange incident at home: bottlenose dolphins “snout trembled” before diving head first into the sand and emerging with a few fish. The researchers thought they were using echolocation to find them. But they observed similar snout tremors in the dolphins tested for their study when the electric fields were particularly weak. As if they were trying to verify the presence of the electrical stimulus.
Bottlenose dolphins use electric fields to hunt
The researchers confirm that bottlenose dolphins have also been shown to be sensitive to varying electric fields, such as those produced by fish — or by the beating of a human heart — in real life. And they argue that this ability to detect electric fields could also allow them to orient themselves in relation to the Earth’s magnetic field. They could thus find, in the fluctuations of this field, an explanation for certain strandings.
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