Is it true that sharks have special extra senses and can smell blood from miles away?
Sharks can actually hear better than they can smell. A shark can smell something from 0.5km away and can hear something from 1.6km away. Studies have also shown that when sharks smell blood in the water, they actually have a stronger reaction to the blood of their regular prey items than to that of humans. Additional to the five senses that we humans have, sharks have an extra two. They can feel vibrations in the water through their lateral line, fluid-filled sensory canals on each side of its body, which respond to pressure changes and movements from 100m away. They also have electrical sensors in their nose which are jelly-filled pits known as the ‘Ampullae of Lorenzini’. These pits enable the shark to detect the minute electrical fields emitted by contracting muscles that occur in all living animals. That means that they can detect the heartbeat of a sleeping or hiding fish (but only from less than 1m away). This sense can sometimes be confused by other objects in the water which em
