I was learning about a strange creature I didn't even know existed and there's just so many organisms especially in the deep oceans we are yet to discover so it's no surprise when you see something you didn't know existed.
This one is called the clearnose skate. You probably didn't know that it can find fish by sensing electrical fields produced by their heartbeats. It can feel these pulses with special senses called the ampullae of lorenzini. It's like tiny pores along the skate's skin have jelly filled pockets of electrical conductors inside them. When fish are laying in the sand, they think they're safe, but the skate can feel how they're moving by the weak electrical signals their muscles generate, even their breathing gives off weak electrical signals that the skate can sense. It almost seems unfair, doesn't it, because that chance for a prey to hide has been defeated. Well, maybe that's just how I think about it. Maybe fish just shouldn't be hiding from badass skates.
The clearnose skate's design may be plain, with brownish colors and flat shapes, but when you think about the way it hunts, it's like being out on the water and fishing while using a sense you don't have. I told this to my cousin but she just didn't care about the joke punchline, but maybe you will. "So the ability the clearnose skate has is like a metal detector for fish" she said it's true, but not really the point.
I think about all the stuff that could be going on beneath the surface of the water that we can't see and how not being seen doesn't mean you can't be found. And we have hundreds of thousands of undiscovered animals, so what other abilities do living things have that we are yet to discover?
