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The electroreceptors of monotremes consist of free nerve endings located in the mucous glands of the snout. Among the monotremes, the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) has the most acute electric sense. [37] [38] The platypus localises its prey using almost 40,000 electroreceptors arranged in front-to-back stripes along the bill. [34]
Ampullae of Lorenzini are physically associated with and evolved from the mechanosensory lateral line organs of early vertebrates.Passive electroreception using ampullae is an ancestral trait in the vertebrates, meaning that it was present in their last common ancestor. [7]
Oblique view of a goldfish (Carassius auratus), showing pored scales of the lateral line system. The lateral line, also called the lateral line organ (LLO), is a system of sensory organs found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure gradients in the surrounding water.
Digging in the bottom of streams with its bill, its electroreceptors detect tiny electric currents generated by the muscular contractions of its prey, enabling it to distinguish between animate and inanimate objects. [49] Experiments have shown the platypus will even react to an "artificial shrimp" if a small electric current is passed through it.
The elephantnose fish is a weakly electric fish which generates an electric field with its electric organ, detects small variations in the field with its electroreceptors, and processes the detected signals in the brain to locate nearby objects.
The electroreceptors can detect weak electrical fields which not only signal the presence of prey items in the water column, such as zooplankton which is the primary diet of the American paddlefish, but they can also detect the individual feeding and swimming movements of zooplankton's appendages.
He described the structure of the organs (stacks of electrocytes) as "extremely simple and regular, consisting of two parts; viz. flat partitions or septa, and cross divisions between them." He measured the electrocytes as 1 ⁄ 17 inch (1.5 mm) thick in the main organ, and 1 ⁄ 56 inch (0.45 mm) thick in Hunter's organ.
In biology, the electric organ is an organ that an electric fish uses to create an electric field. Electric organs are derived from modified muscle or in some cases nerve tissue , called electrocytes, and have evolved at least six times among the elasmobranchs and teleosts .