Homework Assignment

12. Some say sharks are the best electricians on the planet... how is that true?

Sharks are large creatures of the marine ecosystem, and usually at the top of the marine food chain. They have physical traits which help them to camouflage in the sea, and are well known for their deadly accuracy at hunting preys. However this is not attributed to their camouflaging skills.

Sharks possess a way of sensing preys before attacking with deadly accuracy, and that is electroreception. Electroreception simply means that one is able to sense electrical currents with their bodies, which sharks are extremely good at. In the water, any movement requiring the prey to use their muscles, sharks would be able to sense it, which then allows them to very accurately pinpoint the location of the prey. This is due to the fact the fishes’ body have a different charge from the saltwater which they live in. The contact of the fishes’ bodies with the particles of the water results in a weak electric charge. This would then be conducted over the water and be sensed by the sharks. They have an extremely sensitive body to electrical charges and sense even the smallest and tiniest of them. After pinpointing the location, they would then gradually move closer and hunt down their prey. Although there are other marine creatures such as rays who share a similar body trait, the shark has the most sensitive and finely tuned trait.
            This is similar to the statement since it hints that sharks are probably the best electricians due to sharks being really tuned to electric currents around them, like what a real electrician in real life does. 

13. To all the best fathers in the world, try beating the seahorse at doing that job.

            The seahorse male is the one who carries all the eggs and nurture the baby seahorses in his pouch before delivering them. Unlike humans, the male actually carries the babies and is the one pregnant.

When the mating process begins, the male and female starts by a mating ritual where they will intertwine their tails and swim together, after which a mating dance begins. After that, the female deposits around 1500 eggs into the male’s pouch for him to carry and fertilize. The male then has to go through the pregnancy of 10 – 25 days (depending on breed) where the eggs will hatch in his pouch. During this time, the male supplies the eggs with prolactin (hormone for milk production in pregnant mammals). His pouch also acts as an incubator where it stimulates conditions of the outside world, such as salinity of water, to prepare the young of the wild. When they are finally ready, he dispels them via muscular contractions. After they are released into the outside world, the male seahorse has nothing more to do with his children.

A father in human context only contributes the sperm and do not experience pregnancy, where everything is left to the female. However, in the seahorse context, he personally carries the babies in his pouch during pregnancy, and prepares them to adapt to the outside world during pregnancy. As a result, the human father cannot be compared to the seahorse father since a human father does almost close to nothing in comparison to the seahorse father, who generally does everything, from carrying them to nurturing them.