Abstract
Omnidirectional Electric Fish
Highlights
What could an African lion stalking a distant impala in the African savanna possibly have in common with an electric fish searching for nearby water fleas in the Amazon River? Both the lion and the rather less daunting 14cm black ghost knifefish (Apteronotus albifrons) use sensory information to help them to locate and catch prey
It’s certainly useful to be able to sense in all directions, active sensing comes at a cost; energetically, it’s very expensive to generate a goodsized electric field, since the signal falls off rapidly with distance
To see whether the energetic constraints of the knifefish’s active sensing might lead to a restricted sensory space when compared with passive-sensing creatures like lions, and to study the relationship between the knifefish’s sensory capability and its extraordinary movements while hunting for food, Malcolm MacIver along with graduate student James Snyder and colleagues measured the sensory volume (SV)— the size and shape of the space within which objects can be detected by an animal—and compared it to the motor volume (MV)—the location in space that an animal can reach within a set time period by activating its musculoskeletal system
Summary
What could an African lion stalking a distant impala in the African savanna possibly have in common with an electric fish searching for nearby water fleas in the Amazon River? Both the lion and the rather less daunting 14cm black ghost knifefish (Apteronotus albifrons) use sensory information to help them to locate and catch prey. Lions, which rely on their acute vision during the hunt, engage in passive sensing, whereas the knifefish actively senses by generating a weak electric field around its body.
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