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Good question. Undoubtedly lightning can kill creatures in the sea, however, it seems unlikely that this is a frequent problem. To understand why, let's look at cows in the field during a lightning storm. It has been discovered that if a tree surrounded by cows is struck by lightning, the cows extremely close to the tree may be killed regardless of how they are pointed, while farther away, only the cows pointed either towards or away from the tree will be killed--but the cows oriented on imaginary concentric circles around the tree will be okay. Why would this be? Well, the lightning's high voltage disperses circularly from the point of the strike, decreasing evenly as it spreads outward. The cows pointing towards or away from the tree get the high voltage on two feet and a lower voltage on the other two, causing a large current right through the heart. If they are concentric with the tree, the current does not flow from front to back, thus causing very little current through the cows' hearts. For fish it is about the same situation. Only some fish pointed to or from the strike and located close to the strike would be killed. The energy dispersal in the water is very rapid, and if a fish is more-or-less pointed concentrically to the strike...no problem. For the survivors...Hey! fried fish for lunch.

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17y ago

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