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Does sturgeon do use electrosense in predating? Xu-Guang ZHANG 1, Jia-Kun SONG1,*, Hendrik Herzog 2 1 Institute for Marine Biosystem and Neuroscience, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai 201306, China 2 Institute of zoology, University of Bonn, Poppelsdorfer Schloss, Bonn 53115, Germany *Corresponding author E-mail: [email protected] Abstract: Objective The electro-receptive lateral line system appears in the early evolutionary history of fish. One of the primitive Chondrostei fish group, sturgeon, is well known to have the electroreceptors (the ampullay Lourenzeni organs) on the head. They were thought to be sensitive to weak electric fields in aquatic environment and being used in behaviors of prey detecting, mating, and migrating; however, there was little experimental evidence could find directly to support the claim. Here we report our results of behavioral and electrophysiological experiments that are specifically designed to investigate the function and characters of the electrosensory in sturgeon. First, we record the electronic characters of the bio-electrical field of their living prey. Then, we investigate the behavioral pattern of the Siberian Sturgeon, Acipenser baerii in response to the identified bio-electrical field (produced by embedding the living prey fish in the gel chamber). Third, we record the response properties of the electrosensory neurons in the hind brain from the dorsal octavolateralis nucleus (DON) of the White Sturgeon, Acipenser transmontanus with the simulating sinusoidal electric field according to the identified characters of the bio-electrical field produced by living prey. We find that (1) the bio-electrical field of prey fish presented as direct current electric field of dipole type with negative potential on head and positive potential on tail and modulated into alternating electric field by respiration rhythm; (2) During the stimulation, DON units increased their firing rate and phase coupled the stimulation wave and showed the selectivity of dipolar direction. These behavioral and electrophysiological results are first solid evidence to point out that the electrosense of Sturgeon does being used in predating (feeding) behavior. Keywords: electrosense, sturgeon, behavior, dipole, hindbrain