Secret of Skins

Published on
Thursday 12 December 2019
Category
College & Community

On Wednesday 18 December, you will be able to catch Sarah Skeels talk about her research that involves studying weakly electric fish and how they use electric fields. Earlier this term, Skeels was contacted by the BBC about participating in their new documentary series on the topic of skin. The series aim is to highlight the diversity of skin across the animal kingdom and its various functions.

They filmed some of Skeels' weakly electric fish for a segment for the episodes on Communication. Weakly electric fish produce electric signals to communicate with one another, using specialised receptors on their skin to detect the signals of others.


The series will start to air on BBC 4 on Sunday 15 December 2019 at 19:30. The series is made up of six episodes which will be released on consecutive nights. The episode Skeels is involved in airs on Wednesday 18 December. Learn more