The Discovery of the Shark’s Electric Sense

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The seeds for the discovery of sharks and rays’ ability to detect electromagnetic fields were sown in 1935, completely by accident. Sven Dijkgraaf observed that a shark he was studying would flinch in disgust or pain after encountering a rusty wire, despite never touching it. More than 30 years later, Adrianus “Ad” Kalmijn revisited this observation and conducted experiments on multiple shark and ray species. In his experiments, he discovered that special pores (called the ampullae of Lorenzini) granted the creatures the ability to detect their prey using electromagnetic fields. Read full article here

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