Dolphins feel electric fields

Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) can sense electricity using the pits left behind when the whiskers they are born with fall out. “Everybody thought these structures are vestigial — so without any function,” said zoologist and study co-author Guido Dehnhardt. His team trained two captive dolphins to place their snouts near submerged electrodes and swim away when they detected an electric field. The researchers found that the dolphins’ sensitivity to electricity was similar to that of platypuses. Electroreception could help the animals to find fish hiding in sand on the sea floor or to navigate the ocean using Earth’s magnetic field.