This fish has a highly developed sense for electric fields and frequencies. To us human beings this seems like a kind of "sixth sense", but for the fish it is a means of sensing its environment and performing essential functions such as finding food.

Elephant Nose fish are from the rivers of Central Africa, such as the Nile and Zambezi. Swimming along the bottom of the dark and murky waters, they "see" not using their eyesight (which is very poor), but through electrical pulses emitted from an organ on their tail. These pulses create an electric field around the fish which is wired into its brain. Changes in the electric field thus alert the fish to changes in its surroundings, allowing the fish to navigate, communicate, find food and so on. The fish's distinctive "nose" is in fact an electrically sensitive probe that it uses to scoop food into its mouth (which is above the nose).

Electric fields and frequencies are in our environment too - the difference is that we, unlike the fish, can't see them. With the help of technology this will not always be so - powerful electric field sensors have been developed that are based on precisely the way that the electric fish "sees".

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