--- title: Electric senses: electric eels, sharks, the platypus bill and charged bees — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Electric senses: electric eels, sharks, the platypus bill and charged bees», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Every living animal makes tiny electric signals: each heartbeat and each twitch of a muscle sen --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Electric senses: electric eels, sharks… # Electric senses: electric eels, sharks, the platypus bill and charged bees Lesson 231 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/0/) — Every living animal makes tiny electric signals: each heartbeat and each twitch of a muscle sends out a weak electric buzz into the water around it. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/1/) — We cannot feel these buzzes, but many water animals can. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/2/) — A shark gliding over the sand can feel the heartbeat of a fish hiding underneath, like you finding a friend under a blanket by feeling them breathe. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/3/) — Some animals go further and make their own electricity: the electric eel stacks thousands of special cells like little batteries in a row and can give a shock strong enough to light a bulb. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/4/) — Water carries electricity well, which is why almost all electric senses belong to animals that live or hunt in water; on land, bees are a rare surprise. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/5/) — Our own nerves and heart also run on tiny electric signals, which is why a shock from a socket is so dangerous to us. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/6/) — Electric eels can give shocks of several hundred volts, about 600 or even more, more than twice the voltage of a home socket in Britain. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/7/) — Most of an electric eel's long body is made of special cells that work like many small batteries stacked in a row; it is not a true eel but a kind of knifefish, closer to catfish than to true eels. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/8/) — Electric eels use weak pulses to sense what is around them and strong shocks to stun prey and scare enemies, and even young eels can give a tingle. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/9/) — Sharks have tiny jelly-filled pores on their snouts, called ampullae of Lorenzini, that feel the weak electricity of a fish's muscles and heartbeat, even when it is buried in sand. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/10/) — A hammerhead shark's wide head spreads its electric sensors over a wider strip of sea floor, like a metal detector sweeping a beach, as it hunts stingrays hidden under the sand. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/11/) — A platypus closes its eyes, ears and nose underwater and finds shrimps and worms with the electric and touch sensors in its soft bill. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/12/) — Elephantnose fish make a weak electric field around themselves and read it with their long chins to find food in dark, muddy African rivers. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/13/) — Electric rays lie flat on the sand and can stun fish with shocks of up to about 200 volts; Roman doctors once used them to numb pain. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/14/) — A bumblebee can feel a flower's weak electric charge, which changes for a while after another bee visits, so the bee may skip a flower that was just emptied. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/15/) — The Guiana dolphin has small pits on its snout, left where its baby whiskers were, that feel electric fields; it was the first dolphin found with this sense, in 2011. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/16/) — People cannot feel other animals' electric fields, but our hearts and brains work with electric signals that doctors measure with an ECG and an EEG. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/231-electric-senses-eels-sharks-the-platypus-and-charged-bees/17/) — A real electric shock makes muscles jump and can stop the heart; it does not just make hair stand up like in cartoons. - ← previous: [Echolocation in the sea and in people: dolphins, whales, swiftlets and clicking humans](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/) - next →: [Hidden senses: magnetic birds and turtles, ultraviolet bees, heat-seeing snakes, whiskers and lateral lines](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/232-hidden-senses-magnetic-birds-ultraviolet-bees-heat-seeing-snakes/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)