Hello and welcome to a Fun Fact From Flora , You know what’s really cool? Lots of aquatic vertebrates can detect electric fields. They can FEEL ELECTRICITY. And we’re not just talking fish here — we’re talking platypus and frogs too.

This is usually for the purpose of detecting stuff — whether that’s prey, predators or your fellow pals.

There is a LOT of awesome stuff in the science of this but given that I"m supposed to be doing revision I"m gonna keep it brief.

Let’s talk about detecting predators. This is the clearnose skate. He’s a pretty cool dude.

He can detect changes in the electric field around him and actually these guys are most sensitive to the frequencies of electricity that are produced by predators of their eggs.

What is even cooler is that the ability to detect electric fields (the electrosense) starts kicking in while these skates are still egg-encapsulated embryos. So these little dudes can detect when a predator is nearby EVEN WHEN THEY ARE STILL INSIDE THEIR EGG CASES .

That is totally mad. But I know what you’re thinking. Damn useless to be able to detect a predator if you’re inside an egg. There’s not a lot you can do to escape a predator if you are literally trapped inside a bag.

Oh my dear this is where it gets cool.

When the baby embryo skates detect a predator they STOP BREATHING so that the predator is much less likely to find it.

WHHAAAAAT.

That means that the tiny electric pulses produced by its own heartbeat stop so that the other electrosensing animals are gonna have a tough old time trying to find it.

Isn’t that insane?!?!

Lots of love,

Flora xx