Do knife fish have sensors?

[jordanhunt]

This may sound stupid but today I was looking at my BGK and I noticed his head stripe looked translucent, I heard they use electricity to find food so is this stripe a sensor like on the end of a tv remote?


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[Aweshade9]

No, they have an organ on the nose (that shouldn't be visible) that does the sensing

 

[Kaliedoscope]

I believe the negative phase of the wave is received by about 75% of the electric organ, which of course is the whole body fromt the neck down. They have quite a few smell sensors in their nose and touch sensors.
It goes that a wave like the EOD is relativley simple to create, as it does not have all the differentials that the negative phase would carry and would thus need more organ to interpret than create.
This is just my understanding but I have read thosands of papers on these knives. They are very heavily studied so if you ever need to know anything about a BGK check google scholar first.

 

[Kaliedoscope]

They have a very accute sense of smell which would account for the belief that the sensing is done by the nose. A EOD is of course a field so it would be created and recieved by the same organ in a continum

 

[Kaliedoscope]

You occasionally hear stories of bgks bioluminescing in the white areas and glowing (sometimes supposedly red) during the mating rituals - of course this sounds very ghostly and could just be rumor

 

[Slippery K]

Knifefish use electrical impulses to find food as well as an amazing sense of smell. People say they have bad eye sight, but I swear thats a myth. My old 18"+ rck would notice me from across the room and get excited for food.

 

[benzjamin13]

Knifefish use electrical impulses to find food as well as an amazing sense of smell. People say they have bad eye sight, but I swear thats a myth. My old 18"+ rck would notice me from across the room and get excited for food.

Chitala species have great eye sight. They lack the organ that produces electric pulses. It's mainly the Gymnotisformes.