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Canal between Ears Helps Alligators Pinpoint Sound

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – By reptile standards, alligators are positively chatty. They are the most vocal of the non-avian reptiles and are known to be able to pinpoint the source of sounds with accuracy. But it wasn’t clear exactly how they did it because they lack external auditory structures.

In a new study, an international team of biologists shows that the alligator’s ear is strongly directional because of large, air-filled channels connecting the two middle ears. This configuration is similar in birds, which have an interaural canal that increases directionality. (more…)

Blind Cavefish Use Teeth to Find Their Way, New UMD Research Shows

By Guest PostSeptember 19, 2012Natureastroblepus pholeter, brain, catfish, cavefish, daphne soares, dark, darkness, denticles, dentin, ecuador, ecuadorian cave, enamel, evolutionary phenomenon, human ear, maryland, mathematical, mechanosensory part, natural sciences, navigate, neuromasts, sensory use, single cave, skin teeth, teeth, university, unknown, water, way

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — In a single cave in Ecuador, a species of cavefish has evolved to do something perhaps unique to them, navigate with their teeth.

The sensory use of these teeth, which are not in their mouths, but protrude from their skin, appears to be a previously unknown evolutionary phenomenon, one that may not exist anywhere outside this one cave, say researchers at the University of Maryland, National Institutes of Health and Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador who brought to light this fascinating new adaptation to life in dark, swiftly flowing waters. (more…)

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Canal between Ears Helps Alligators Pinpoint Sound

Blind Cavefish Use Teeth to Find Their Way, New UMD Research Shows