Ways in Which Animals Are More Advanced than Humans

 by Alice Collins

Vampire bat (Wiki commons)

For centuries, mankind has labelled itself as the pinnacle of evolution; however, despite this, there are many ways in which animals and insects are more advanced than us. Humans are said to have five basic senses: eyesight, smell, hearing (remote senses) touch and and taste (tactile senses). However, certain animals have either enhanced versions of these or ones that are entirely unique.

For example, bumblebees have evolved to use voltage to navigate themselves to plants which need pollinating. This is crucially important for both the existence of the bees and the reproduction of the plants because, unlike us, they cannot rely on their memory to get to the plant, or remember which ones they have already visited. Flowers are naturally negatively charged and when the bumblebees fly they accumulate a positive charge. The mechano-sensory hairs on the bee’s legs are then able to respond to the attraction between the opposing charges and guide the bee to the flower. Once the bee has pollinated the flower, the charge of it changes so other bumblebees know which flowers have already been visited and do not stop by them again.

Sharks are a species that have evolved a similar sense -they have become the best biological conductors of electricity. Sharks have a network of pores around their face which is filled by a substance known as Lorenzini jelly. This special conductor allows the shark to be able to detect minute differences between the electrical charge of an animal and the water around it. This sense is vitally important to the predatory movements of sharks because the majority of species have poor eyesight, and the water they hunt in is often dark or murky so this allows them to detect potential prey regardless of their eyesight.

Vampire bats are an example of a species which have not got a different sense to us, but instead have one of the same which is incredibly more specialised than ours: intensified heat detection. These animals feed on the blood of other mammals and to do so they have to detect the veins of their prey. Both humans and bats have TRPV1 proteins which serve as heat detectors, however Vampire bats can use them to a heightened extent. They have many of these proteins concentrated inside their noses which tell them when the temperature of an animal is above 86 degrees Fahrenheit, which signifies the presence of a blood vessel. This allows them to not only find the animals to prey on, but to locate the position on the animal's body where veins can be most easily accessed.

These examples are only a tiny fraction of the variety of senses in the animal kingdom. It is entirely possible that there are hundreds (if not thousands) more that we are yet to discover and it helps put into perspective just how oblivious we are to the many natural wonders of the world.