It looks like bottlenose dolphins may have more tricks up their fins than we knew.
The biological ability to sense electric fields is known as electroreception.
Some fish can even actively generate electricity as a way to stun and locate their food.
Dolly the dolphin resting her jaw on a metal bar. The set-up was used to test the dolphin’s sense of electroreception in a series of experiments.Image: Tim Hüttner
About a decade ago, scientistspublishedresearch suggesting that Guiana dolphins (Sotalia guianensis) have passive electroreception as well.
The researchers teamed up with scientists from the Nuremberg Zoo, which currently houses six dolphins.
They specifically worked with two bottlenose dolphins named Donna and Dolly.
They then gradually lowered the strength of this field to test the dolphins sensitivity.
Both dolphins were also worse at detecting pulsing electric fields, though Donna was again better overall.
So these dolphins electroreception might provide a concrete explanation for that speculated ability as well, Huttner said.
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