Sharks Can Sense Water Vibrations and Electric Fields

Sharks use the five familiar senses plus two extra abilities: sensing water vibrations and detecting tiny electric fields from living animals.

Biology

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Sharks have a remarkably broad set of sensory abilities that help them find prey and navigate underwater. Along with sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch, they can detect changes in water movement through the lateral line system and sense tiny electrical signals through specialized organs called the ampullae of Lorenzini. The lateral line contains sensory cells that respond to movement and pressure changes in the surrounding water, helping a shark detect nearby motion even when visibility is poor. Electroreception works differently. The ampullae of Lorenzini are small pore-connected sensory organs concentrated around the head that can detect weak electrical fields produced by muscle activity and other biological processes. This can help sharks locate nearby animals and may also contribute to navigation by sensing aspects of Earth’s electromagnetic field. The exact number of senses an animal has depends partly on how scientists define and group sensory systems, so calling these abilities a specific number of separate senses is more complicated than the familiar five-senses model suggests.

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