Bottlenose Dolphins Can Sense Electrical Fields, New Study Reveals

The ability, known as electroreception, may help dolphins locate prey and navigate, potentially explaining mass strandings.

Scientists have confirmed that bottlenose dolphins can sense electrical fields, a biological ability known as electroreception, which is widespread among amphibians and fish but rare among mammals.
The discovery was made by Guido Dehnhardt, a marine mammal zoologist, who found that bottlenose dolphins, soon after birth, lose their whiskers, leaving behind dimples known as vibrissal crypts that can detect electricity.
Experiments conducted with two bottlenose dolphins named Donna and Dolly demonstrated their ability to sense weak electric fields in the water with their long snouts.
The ability to sense electric fields may help dolphins locate prey hiding in the sand, as all organisms produce electric direct current fields (DC), and when a fish is breathing via its gills, these fields can turn into pulses of alternating currents (AC).
Electroreception may also allow dolphins to sense changes in the Earth’s magnetic field and use something like a magnetic map for navigation, potentially explaining mass strandings of healthy whales and dolphins.