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📘 How does a shark find prey?

A shark does not depend on one magical sense. It samples chemicals in the water, hears and feels disturbances, sees when the target is close, and detects weak electric fields at the final approach. Each sense works best at a different dista

5
lessons
~25 min
to learn
Adults
level
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What you’ll learn

  1. A shark builds a sensory searchExplain why sharks combine senses that work over different ranges and in different conditions.A shark's hunt begins with complementary clues rather than one universal sense.
  2. Smell draws the shark toward a sourceDescribe how dissolved chemicals and water movement create an odor trail.Smell can announce a distant opportunity, while currents shape the trail's reliability.
  3. The lateral line reads water motionIdentify the lateral line as a distributed detector of pressure and flow disturbances.Nearby prey creates hydrodynamic signals that guide the shark even in darkness or murk.
  4. Ampullae detect living electrical signalsExplain how gel-filled ampullae detect weak bioelectric fields at close range.Electroreception can reveal nearby or buried prey that sight cannot resolve.
  5. The hunt ends through sensory integrationSynthesize smell, lateral-line sensing, and electroreception into a hunting sequence.The shark continually combines chemical, mechanical, visual, and electrical information while steering.

Questions this course answers

Why do sharks use several senses when hunting?

Smell, lateral-line sensing, vision, and electroreception provide complementary information.

Match each sense with its main hunting clue.

Each system samples a different physical property of the environment.

Why is an odor plume not a perfectly straight arrow to prey?

Water movement transports and distorts dissolved chemicals.

What does a shark's nostril do?

Water flows across olfactory tissue while the mouth and gill slits handle ventilation.

What does the lateral line mainly detect?

Sensory cells in the lateral-line system respond when water movement bends their hair-like structures.

Order these events in a lateral-line clue.

A prey movement creates a hydrodynamic disturbance that becomes a nerve signal and then behavior.

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