Pretty cool actually. There have been a bunch of these type discoveries recently. There was a recent article about 4 new species of legless lizards being discovered in California. Genetics hard at work.
what I find most interesting, is that they use electric fields to communicate with others of their species!
Is this skill unique to this fish? I know there are plenty of other electric fish. It is interesting how we think about senses as our five, but that nature has developed so many other ways to interact with the world. Echolocation, infrared vision, magnetic sensing and now electric communication.
I believe the article says some other electric fish do this as well. some squid use lights they produce on their body to communicate.
Side syfy geek question. If you could have any one sense that exists in nature to add to your current senses, which would you choose?
I don't get these fish. Rather than blend in at school with all the other electric fish, they say they aren't feeling the same current as others and really aren't like other electric fish. So what does our liberal society do, they give the fish it's own genus and own set of rules. A fish is a fish is a fish. I don't care what voltage they think they are or if they think they are a light bulb. They are electric fish and need to be treated as such . . . with no special treatment just because they think they are different.
Interesting question, Further. Because it is so hard to imagine how life would be different if we could, for example, echolocate. Hell, how different would life be if humans had a dog's sense of smell, a cat's ability to see in the dark? Like explaining sight to a person born blind.
Dog Smell would not be on my list. Not only do smells like perfume and crap already bother me, but I also don't want to know what every ingredient is in my food, or where everyone came from. Smell just gives too much information.
Yeah, hmm. UV or infrared vision may be interesting but since we are not used to it would we find it distracting to? Super hearing? But do you REALLY want to hear what other people say about you when (they think) you can't hear? Would a canine sense of smell help me find where I put the damn keys? And our faces are built for sight, not smell - animals that rely primarily on vision like people and cats have flat faces, while animals that rely on smell like dogs have muzzles. Perhaps what it comes down to is we evolved with the senses and body parts we have because they are more or less adaptive? (Less in the sense of our backs which is why so many of us have back pain but that's another story.)
Since everything emits infrared, with IR vision you'd see a halo of infrared radiation around every object.
Magnetoception, I think this makes the most sense. Always know where you are and where magnetic N (and all other directions) are.
