Animals have evolved extraordinary perceptual abilities, such as the night vision ability of eagles, the ability of moths to sniff faint odors in the air, the ability of cetaceans to spread sounds to their companions thousands of miles away, and so on, all of which humans do not have. These abilities of animals evolved under the enormous pressure of natural selection. When a predator evolves a new ability to hunt, some of the hunters will also evolve corresponding confrontational abilities in the brutal competition for survival, and some of these outstanding abilities will gradually be fixed in the genetic genes and become the unique supersensory abilities of animals.
touch
Most mammals and some birds have long tentacles or nose hairs on their faces that are sensitive to touch. The tentacles bend slightly when they encounter foreign object obstruction and are simultaneously perceived by the nervous system. Some animals, such as mice, have amazing tactile sensitivity to their tentacles, and they can even perceive a slight flow of air.
For fish living underwater, the tentacles seem to be of little use. But this is not the case, and a special kind of hair cells have evolved on both sides of their bodies that can sense the flow of water through the sense of touch.
Cetaceans have even evolved a more advanced set of perceptual "tools." They possess an electrosensitive cell called a "Lawrence pot belly," which is connected to the surface of the skin through small tubes and senses the electrical impulses emitted by other fish in the water as their muscles contract. The electrosensitive cells, known as "kettle belly," are also thought to help sharks navigate using geomagnetism to sense water temperature and salinity of seawater. Using this sensitive electrical sensing ability of sharks, scientists have developed electronic shark repellents to avoid shark attacks on divers while diving underwater.
hearing
Cetaceans use ultra-low frequency sounds in the seawater to contact their companions hundreds of kilometers away. Scientists have studied the song of humpback whales and found that during the mating season, male humpback whales repeat a complex series of low-frequency sounds, with frequencies between 10 and 20 hertz. Since the human ear cannot hear sounds below 20 hertz, researchers must use specialized underwater megaphones to sense sound in this frequency range.
Some animals exhibit their extraordinary hearing in a completely different way. Dolphins, bats, shrews
(A small insectivore of the shrew superfamily, similar to rats but with a long, pointed snout and small eyes and small ears) and South American monsters can make a series of "clicking" sounds, and then sense their surroundings and navigate for themselves by listening to the echoes that come back. Armed with this peculiar ability, these animals know their location, their surroundings, their surrounding obstacles, and their prey, even in complete darkness. Scientists refer to this ability of animals as "biosonar" or "echolocation," in which certain animals use the echoes of their own sounds to navigate when they move. bat
The high-frequency sound can be up to 100,000 hertz and the vibration amplitude can reach 200 times per second, which is enough to allow them to easily prey on some prey with unusually small and fast bodies, such as mosquitoes. Dolphins are also experts at using biosonar, and many experiments have shown that they can distinguish between golf and billiards because they can use biosonar to perceive the difference in density between the two.
Scientists once thought that echolocation ability is a unique ability of a few animals, but the experience of a blind teenager named Ben Underwood in the United States has upended this understanding of scientists. Underwood can't see with his eyes, but he can not only walk and run, but also play skating freely. The study found that Underwood's secret was that he was able to act like a dolphin, make a series of "click" sounds, and then judge the surrounding environment based on the echo. This example amply demonstrates that human potential is unlimited, and that there are certain untapped supersensory abilities hidden in the human body.
vision
Scientists believe that birds are the best-sighted animals among vertebrates. They are able to see four wavelengths of light, known as four-color vision, while most human retinas can only distinguish three wavelengths of light. The fourth type of light that birds can recognize is the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, while humans can only see ultraviolet light with the help of special instruments or camera technology.
The ability to see ultraviolet light gives birds an incredible visual world, which is important for the survival of birds. For example, for a hen or a female peacock, with the ability to distinguish between the four wavelengths of light, they can see the subtle differences in the style of the male's feathers and markings, so as to choose the ideal companion for themselves.
Ultraviolet sensitivity is also very helpful for animals foraging. When an eagle called a kestrel soars in the sky, through the reflection of ultraviolet light, it can see the urine traces of small rodents, many songbirds can see berries that strongly reflect ultraviolet light, bees, wasps and other pollen-imparting insects can also see ultraviolet light, and they can easily find "honey guides" on flowering plants that are invisible to the human eye.
Researchers recently discovered that a very small percentage of humans with some mutant gene also have four-color light vision, allowing them to see a colorful world that most humans can't see.
Birds of prey such as eagles, bald eagles and owls have super sharp eyesight and are able to spot prey at a distance, even small ones.
This feature of birds of prey benefits from a variety of vision enhancement mechanisms. Both of these birds' eyes are facing forward, so they have binocular vision, can see farther, and have overlapping visions. In addition, the retina of birds of prey is densely covered with a large number of light-sensitive cells, such as as 1 million light-sensing cells in the eyes of bald eagles, which is 5 times more than that of humans.
Nocturnal animals have an innate ability to see at night, and if humans want to see in the dark, they must use high-tech night vision goggles. In the case of owls, for example, they have a pair of large eyes that account for a large proportion of the head, their eyes are tubular, they can see far, and the pupils can open widely, allowing more light to enter the retina of dense light-sensitive cells. Owls are more than 100 times more sensitive to weak light than we humans are. Owls have superb vision, but not without flaws — although they can see far, their eyeballs can't move freely in the eye sockets. To compensate for this defect, their necks can be turned 270 degrees to the left and right, and 90 degrees upwards.
Some owls, as well as other nocturnal animals, have additional eye structures, the highly reflective layer behind the retina known as the "reflective film." When driving at night, the driver can see a pair of sparkling eyes of a rabbit, deer or cat in the light of the headlights. In fact, the eyes of these animals do not glow, but the role of the reflective film behind their retina, and the light entering the eye is strengthened on the reflective film and then reflected onto the retina. Predators use enhanced night vision to make it easier to catch prey, while prey that is being hunted uses enhanced night vision to detect danger in time. The human eye does not have this reflective film.
Smell and taste
Smell and taste are closely related to humans, who always smell and recognize food through their noses first. Animals can also "taste" the faint smell associated with food in the air through their nose plow bone organs. Most vertebrates have nasal plow bone organs in their mouths and must open their mouths to make contact with air to perceive odors, so when a snake sticks out its tongue, it is most likely intended to make contact with its nasal plow bone organs with the outside world in order to sense the smell in the air. Scientists believe that humans also have nasal plow bone organs, but have long since lost most of their functions in the process of evolution.
The keen sense of smell is not limited to vertebrates, and some blood-sucking organisms, such as mosquitoes and lice, are very sensitive to the carbon dioxide exhaled from the lungs when humans breathe. Scientists recently confirmed that olfactory neurons have a specific receptor protein on their surface that can sense the presence of extremely low levels of carbon dioxide. Based on this finding, it is possible that researchers could develop some kind of new mosquito repellent in the future to effectively control disease-transmitting mosquitoes, such as The Malaria Mosquito.
For male moths,
There is a message of love in the air, and their feather-soft tentacles can sense the presence of a very small amount of chemicals called pheromones in the air. Moths don't have noses, but their tentacles can also "smell" pheromones. Female moths release certain pheromones from special glands in the abdomen, and as long as a few pheromone molecules fall on the special sensory cells of the male moth's tentacles, the male moth will have a strong desire for courtship. Some studies believe that humans also produce certain pheromones that attract the opposite sex.
Warm sensitivity
Snakes are one of the most successful animals on Earth, they have a natural venom, they have no limb burdens, they are very agile, and some of them have a supersensory ability - the ability to sense warmth, that is, the ability to sense infrared light.
Behind the eye of the rattlesnake, there is a heat-sensitive nest called the "cheek fossa",
It gave rattlesnakes the ability to detect infrared (i.e., thermal radiation) in order to spot warm-blooded animals (their prey). Heat-sensitive receptors within the buccal fossa, or infrared sensory cells, are able to sense the animal's presence through the slight difference between the heat of the animal's body and the lower ambient temperature. Buccal fossa is not just a simple thermal sensor, snakes also use it to measure and judge distance, even in complete darkness, they can accurately determine the position of their prey and hit it with one hit.
A beetle called Melanophila acuminate also possesses this infrared sensing ability.
It's just that they use this ability for a different purpose than the rattlesnake. This beetle prefers to lay eggs in trees after forest fires because the sap and other sticky fluids of normal trees can get in the way. The beetle has a special type of heat-sensitive cell in its abdomen that activates nerve cells as long as they feel the infrared radiation from a nearby forest fire. Studies have shown that this heat-sensitive cell of the beetle can sense forest fires up to 12 kilometers away. Scientists have now applied this excellent sensing ability of beetles to military and industrial fields, developing excellent fire detectors and thermal imaging systems.
Navigation capabilities
Some animals with long-distance migratory habits, such as turtles, songbirds, black-veined golden-spotted butterflies and Atlantic salmon, travel long distances in search of new food sources, breeding grounds and habitats, forming a unique landscape of great splendor in nature. The long-distance migration ability of animals is breathtaking. Arctic terns are the holders of long-distance migration records in the animal kingdom, flying from the North Pole to the South Pole and back to the North Pole over a period of one year, a distance of 20,000 kilometers.
Baby salmon
Swim hundreds of kilometers from the freshwater river in the birthplace to the ocean, and then swim back to the birthplace when you reach adulthood. The black-veined golden-spotted butterfly is a fragile but in fact very strong creature that migrates almost all over North America.
These animals have no compass, no satellite navigation system, no survey maps, no radar, no complex instruments and tools that we humans have, so how did they migrate long distances without getting lost? This question has been plaguing scientists until recently, when it began to gradually unravel the mystery.
Animals' ability to migrate long distances may stem from two outstanding supersensory abilities: polarized light vision and magnetic receptors. The human eye can see natural light, but the human eye does not have the ability to distinguish and perceive polarized light. Whenever the sun is low below the horizon at dawn and dusk, the human eye cannot see the sun's rays, but birds and butterflies can see the polarized light of the sun hitting the ground at this time. Scientists believe that birds and other animals use this polarized light as an accurate reference point on the migration route.
Migratory animals may also use the "magnetic compass" inside them to navigate. Recent studies of carrier pigeons have found that their beaks contain a tiny magnetic crystal, a "magnetite" that is directly connected to the nervous system, and that magnetic receptors act as compasses, simple but reliable compasses that are sensitive to the Earth's magnetic field.
Studies have found that migratory animals are good at finding a variety of navigational clues in nature, such as the sun, stars and landmarks, coupled with their excellent ability to distinguish polarized light and a keen sense of magnetic field, which naturally forms a precise road map in their brains to guide them to complete amazing thousand-mile migrations.
In the fall of 1803, the American naturalist John James tied a thin rope to the leg of a migratory bird about to fly back south to confirm whether birds migrated back to the same place every year. The following spring, John James discovered that the bird had indeed flown back. Later, scientists used similar methods to study the migration of animals, such as attaching metal labels to animals, but this metal label sometimes did not work much, gave too little information, only knew where the animals were issued and destination, and most animals could not be recaptured by scientists.
The latest science and technology solves this problem very well, scientists can attach electronic tags to migrating animals, can constantly transmit signals and be received by electronic receivers or satellites, scientists do not need to capture these animals to get a valuable amount of information on their migration. However, this advanced electronic tag also has disadvantages, one is that they are expensive, and the other is that their weight is heavier, which affects the migration speed of some animals (such as migratory birds).
Researchers at a bird observatory in Cape May, New Jersey, usa, attach electronic tags to the wings of monarch butterflies to track their migration. Monarch butterflies are the only migratory butterflies on Earth. In North America, the black-veined golden-spotted butterfly migrates southward in early August and returns northward in the spring.