By Nadia Drake
Fleeing fish beware: The Guiana dolphin has a super Spidey sense. But instead of danger, the dolphin detects faint electrical fields generated by such things as contracting muscles, a beating heart and pumping gills — telltale signs of potential prey.
The dolphin is the first true mammal with these super sensory powers, scientists report. It detects electrical fields using organs on its snout that were once considered simple remnants of long-lost whiskers. Electroreception — the ability to sense these bioelectric fields — has already been described in sharks, amphibians, fish and some egg-laying mammals.
“We were really surprised to find this in the dolphin. Nobody had expected it,” says sensory biologist Wolf Hanke of the University of Rostock in Germany.