Humans have five well-developed senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch). We see the world in rich color and hear a wide range of sounds (about 20 to 20,000 hertz). Many animals, however, surpass us in specific abilities and even have extra senses humans lack. These help them navigate, find food, avoid predators, and communicate in ways we can barely imagine.

Most of us rely on our eyes to see, but some animals navigate by sound. Echolocation is the ability to emit high-pitched sounds and read the returning echoes, effectively “seeing” with the ears. Bats use ultrasonic clicks (far above human hearing) to map their surroundings and catch insects mid-flight with pinpoint accuracy.

Dolphins and some whales echolocate underwater. They send out rapid clicks and interpret echoes to hunt and avoid obstacles in murky water. Bats typically use echolocation at shorter ranges (around 10 m or 30 ft), ideal for forests and caves. Dolphins can work at much longer distances, exceeding 90 m (300 ft) in the ocean.

Electroreception is sensing weak electric fields, such as those produced by the nerves and muscles of other animals. Water conducts electricity well, so this sense shines in dark or muddy habitats.

Sharks have jelly-filled pores on the head (ampullae of Lorenzini) that detect the faint bioelectric fields of prey, even buried in sand. Rays and skates share this ability, and the duck-billed platypus uses electroreception to find food in murky streams.

On land, bumblebees can feel the electric charge of flowers. A flying bee becomes slightly positive, flowers are slightly negative, and tiny hairs on the bee’s legs detect the difference, guiding it to fresh, nectar-rich blooms. In short, electroreception is a sense devoted to electricity that sharks, bees, and others routinely use but humans lack.

Migratory birds, sea turtles, butterflies, lobsters, whales, and even warthogs can detect Earth’s magnetic field, using it like an internal compass.

How it works varies. In some birds, a light-sensitive protein in the eye (cryptochrome) may let them see a faint magnetic pattern overlaid on normal vision. In other species, tiny magnetic particles (magnetite) in tissues may provide a physical cue to direction. Honeybees, for example, have paramagnetic crystals thought to act as a compass.

Magnetoreception also shows up in day-to-day hunting. Red foxes are more successful pouncing on hidden rodents when facing north, as if combining magnetic cues with hearing. Even cattle and deer tend to rest aligned north-south. Magnetoreception is both common and highly useful in the animal kingdom.

Some animals can “see” heat. They detect infrared (IR) radiation, thermal energy just beyond red light and invisible to us.

Pit vipers (like rattlesnakes) have facial pit organs that sense IR from warm objects, essentially a built-in night-vision system. They can detect temperature differences as small as 0.001 °C (0.002 °F), enough to strike accurately in total darkness.

Fire-chasing jewel beetles use IR sensors to find forest fires and freshly burned trees from up to 80 km (50 mi) away. Vampire bats have heat sensors on their noses that help them find warm spots on skin where blood vessels lie close to the surface (around 30 °C / 86 °F or warmer). These heat maps reveal prey and danger when light fails.

Many birds possess a fourth type of color receptor that detects ultraviolet (UV) light, allowing them to see an extra channel of color that we humans miss. Feathers and even beaks that look plain to us can glow in UV to other birds. Parakeets (budgerigars) have UV-reflective cheek patches, and city pigeons show a UV sheen on the neck that helps with mate choice.

UV also shows up in nature’s signposts: flowers paint UV “nectar guides” to lead pollinators, and in snowy places, reindeer use UV contrast to spot dark lichen for food and to pick out predators against bright snow.

Polarized light is light with waves oriented in the same direction. Many animals detect it. Ants use polarized skylight as a compass, even when clouds hide the sun. Reflections from water, leaves, or scales can polarize light too, revealing hidden patterns or camouflaged prey.

Octopuses and cuttlefish are polarization-sensitive and can spot contrast in the underwater world. They even communicate by altering polarization of reflected light from their skin, invisible to animals without this sense. Cuttlefish are specialists here, despite being colorblind to some ordinary colors.

Mantis shrimps go further. With 12-16 photoreceptor types (we have 3), they see UV, extra colors, and both linear and circular polarization (sensing the rotation of light waves). They use these hidden channels for recognition and mating signals.

Infrasound refers to very low-frequency sounds (below about 20 Hz) that we cannot hear. Elephants communicate with infrasonic rumbles around 15-35 Hz. Other elephants up to 16 km (10 mi) away can receive the message through air and ground. Their feet and trunks detect seismic vibrations, letting them “hear” through the earth.

Large whales, such as blue whales, also produce infrasonic calls that can travel across ocean basins, connecting individuals dozens or hundreds of kilometers apart.

Many animals hear far higher frequencies than we do. Dogs and cats reach roughly 40-60 kHz. Rodents (mice and rats) chat with ultrasonic chirps we never notice.

Some moths evolved ears tuned to the ultrasonic calls of hunting bats. The greater wax moth has the most acute hearing known, detecting around 300 kHz. What is silence to us is rich with signals for these species.

Mosquitoes can smell carbon dioxide (CO₂), a major cue we exhale but cannot detect. Specialized receptors on their antennae lock onto CO₂ plumes, then combine that information with heat and skin odors to find us efficiently.

Many vertebrates also use the vomeronasal (Jacobson’s) organ to detect pheromones and other chemical signals. Snakes and lizards flick their tongues to collect molecules and deliver them to this organ, effectively tasting the air for prey or mates. Cats and other mammals draw scents into it with the “flehmen” response (the lip-curling sniff). Humans retain only remnants of this system, so we miss a whole channel of scent-based communication.