These Electric Fish Detect Images of What Their Companions Are ‘Seeing’
Schools of brainiac fish share “images” of nearby objects and use their extraordinary ability to see farther
Peters’s elephantnose fish (Gnathonemus petersii).
De Agostini Picture Library/Getty Images
With a trunk-like snout, an enormous brain and shimmying moves, freshwater elephantnose fish seem straight out of a science-fiction novel. But these oddballs’ most shocking trait is their ability to emit and sense electricity. They use electric currents to pinpoint prey and potential mates in the muddy river bottoms where they reside.
Now scientists have discovered that the fish can supercharge this power by working together. In a paper published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, a team of researchers discovered that elephantnose fish are able to pick up on the electric signals of their pulsating peers to collectively sense the world around them. This may expand the fish’s perceptual capabilities, helping them sense prey items and potential foes from farther away.
“We were excited to see that the electrical pulses [of other fish] are not just some background noise,” says Nathaniel Sawtell, a neuroscientist at Columbia University and a co-author of the new paper. “The fish are actually using the pulses of the other fish to their benefit.”
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Sawtell has studied the neural wiring of Peters’s elephantnose fish (Gnathonemus petersii) for several years. These fish, which are found in freshwater rivers and lakes throughout central and western Africa and sport a trunklike extension of their mouth, are brainiacs. They possess the highest brain-to-body weight ratio of any vertebrate,…
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