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HIGH TECH –(i) LOCATION SYSTEMS

Animals evolved high-tech location systems

like sonar and radar systems, infra red heat sensors
and sensors of electrical activity much before Man
millions of years ago to find their way and prey :.

The Duck-billed Platypus uses his snout

to detect electric current in its prey’s muscles
enabling it to find food with its eyes, ears and
the nostrils closed, in river water where he hunts

The Sperm whales bounce sound off objects

and analyse echoes to locate prey like Dolphins
but their echolocation system is more powerful
and so strong that their ear splitting salvos of sound
energy stun or kill their prey acting like loud gunshots .

The virtually blind Electric eels uses electricity

to find its way and prey- it produces low level discharges,
which create an electric field around its entire body,
and are of several hundred volts which shock and stun or kill prey .
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Dolphins ‘see’ with sound their way and their prey
such as a shoal of fish, by a highly sophisticated
echolocation system which indicates the size, shape and
structure of a target and whether prey is calm or frightened .

In case of Bats also the echolocation system

is so accurate that it can tell size, texture, speed, and
direction of prey with their radar like scanning system .
.
The Owls use feathers on their face to collect sounds
and focus them on their ears to detect and pinpoint prey
accurately even in complete darkness for mid night feasts.

Sharks have evolved a remarkable array of seven prey-

detection systems enabling it to home in on its prey 2 km away ,
smell blood from 0.5 km , pick up changes of pressure
produced by moving prey at 100 m, see its prey 25m away
even in dim light, detect minute electric currents produced
by heart or muscles and locate fishes, even those buried in sand .
Sharks Skates and Rays have in fact Ampullae of Lorenzi in addition
to the famous Lateral line system of fishes .
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( ii ) VISUAL SYSTEMS

Nature has, over several millennia, evolved super sight

in many animals creating eyes of diverse shapes and sizes
developing sophisticated visual equipment in many animals :

Eight eyes make Jumping spider a great all-rounder

Its six small and two large eyes give it almost 360º vision
and it uses the small ones to detect movement and the
large ones for precise tracking of prey with its sharp vision .

Big eyed aerial predators-the birds of prey

have a binocular three dimensional vision
enabling them to spot small animals far far away; ,
Indeed some like Eurasian Kestrel having a UV vision
can spot a prey from a height of 1.6 km and African
martial Eagle can swoop down on a prey 6 km away .

Chameleon can see in all directions at once from a pair

of rotating eyes, operating independently, and pinpoint prey
with its binocular vision as also look for prey
and watch for the predators simultaneously .
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Similarly Opossum Shrimp of a coral reef virtually carries
a pair of binoculars as each of its two compound eyes
has hundreds of tiny facets, which give it a honeycomb
view of the world ,and a large lens which points backward
while small lenses look forward in moving shrimps . .