An optical sensor, comprising a sensor head, which contains a sensitive element and which is adjoined by a housing, which contains sensor electronics, wherein the sensitive element is irradiated with light from an optical transmitter and a light characteristic radiated back by the sensitive element is detected by an optical receiver and evaluated by the sensor electronics. The sensor head and the housing are embodied to be separable, wherein different sensor heads having different sensitive elements are connectable to the housing containing the sensor electronics and the sensor electronics evaluates the light characteristics generated by the different sensitive elements.