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Electroreception

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The Sensory Modes of Animal Rhetorics

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature ((PSAAL))

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Abstract

Electroreception is the ability to sense electrical fields, especially in a liquid medium like marine or freshwater bodies. However, a very few species of terrestrial animals have been discovered using electrical field data for their own benefit, which suggests new avenues of research, despite air’s poor conductivity compared to water. The medium almost always prevents the message in the case of air, but diverse creatures use electric organs to stun prey or defend themselves, to locate food, even to communicate with one another! Humans do not have this sense. We were not even aware of its existence until relatively recently, and only now have begun to explore new methods of technologically exploiting the information this sensory mode provides.

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Correspondence to Alex C. Parrish .

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Parrish, A.C. (2021). Electroreception. In: The Sensory Modes of Animal Rhetorics. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76712-9_9

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