How Sharks Sense Temperature Change

Makarand writes "Unlike mammals that use ion channels in their cell walls to produce electrical currents and fire nerves in response to changing temperatures, sharks have been found to be using a totally different approach, one that does not rely on the ion channel mechanism at all. According to this article in Nature a temperature sensitive gel in the pores of the snout allows the shark to sense temperature differences as little as 0.001 C. Increasing temperatures improve electrical conductance of this gel which is noticed by electrically sensitive nerve cells. This may also explain how sharks are able to locate where water masses of different temperatures meet in the oceans to find prey. A synthetic version of the shark gel may be of interest to the microelectronics industry."

Comments

Useful range?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Sharks exist mostly in water that's between, say, 28 and 86 degrees F. That's a great range for sensing temperatures in a shark, or anything else in seawater, but who says the gel is going to be useful outside that range? It might work accidentally, but evolution doesn't always over-engineer its solutions.