Defense and Attack Strategies and Mechanisms in Biology - Biomimetics: Biologically Inspired Technologies - page 361

5nVcm 1 and so detect the fields induced through their bodies as they swim through the earth's
magnetic field. They can use this sense to detect the presence of prey and there is evidence
that they also use it in navigation. However, the electroreceptors cannot measure DC voltages
so that a voltage due to water flow in the ocean is not uniquely interpretable in terms of the
speed and direction of flow at the point where the electrical measurement is made. Perhaps the
cue is the directional asymmetry of the change in induced electroreceptor voltage during
turns. A neural network could use this cue to determine swimming direction by comparing
electrosensory signals and signals from the semicircular canals of the inner ear, which function
as an accelerometer (Kajiura and Holland, 2002). Weakly electric fish such as nocturnal fish and
the gymnotids and mormyrids of the murky waters of the Amazon use active electrolocation — the
generation and detection of electric currents — to explore their surroundings. Although electro-
sensory systems include some of the most extensively understood circuits in the vertebrate central
nervous system, relatively little is known quantitatively about how fish electrolocate objects (Assad
et al., 1999).

13.14 CONCLUSIONS

Biomimetics is not a particularly new study, but it seems to be generating success. It is possible to
calculate the number of functions of biology that appear in a technical environment, which is about
a 10% overlap. This does not mean that the route has been biomimetic, but it does mean that the
technology has been transferred. The transfer has so far been somewhat adventitious, so a chapter
like this one can perhaps not so much report what has been successful (not a lot), but what might be
successful. The difference is: how many of the possibilities have been tried? This chapter is more a
list of things to do than of things done.

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