Harbor seal vibrissa morphology suppresses vortex-induced vibrations
Harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina ) often live in dark and turbid waters, where their mystacial vibrissae, or whiskers, play an important role in orientation. Besides detecting and discriminating objects by direct touch, harbor seals use their whiskers to analyze water movements, for example those gener...
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fthighwire:oai:open-archive.highwire.org:jexbio:213/15/2665 2023-05-15T16:33:06+02:00 Harbor seal vibrissa morphology suppresses vortex-induced vibrations Hanke, Wolf Witte, Matthias Miersch, Lars Brede, Martin Oeffner, Johannes Michael, Mark Hanke, Frederike Leder, Alfred Dehnhardt, Guido 2010-08-01 00:00:00.0 text/html http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/short/213/15/2665 https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.043216 en eng Company of Biologists http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/short/213/15/2665 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.043216 Copyright (C) 2010, Company of Biologists Research Articles TEXT 2010 fthighwire https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.043216 2015-02-28T21:02:19Z Harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina ) often live in dark and turbid waters, where their mystacial vibrissae, or whiskers, play an important role in orientation. Besides detecting and discriminating objects by direct touch, harbor seals use their whiskers to analyze water movements, for example those generated by prey fish or by conspecifics. Even the weak water movements left behind by objects that have passed by earlier can be sensed and followed accurately (hydrodynamic trail following). While scanning the water for these hydrodynamic signals at a swimming speed in the order of meters per second, the seal keeps its long and flexible whiskers in an abducted position, largely perpendicular to the swimming direction. Remarkably, the whiskers of harbor seals possess a specialized undulated surface structure, the function of which was, up to now, unknown. Here, we show that this structure effectively changes the vortex street behind the whiskers and reduces the vibrations that would otherwise be induced by the shedding of vortices from the whiskers (vortex-induced vibrations). Using force measurements, flow measurements and numerical simulations, we find that the dynamic forces on harbor seal whiskers are, by at least an order of magnitude, lower than those on sea lion ( Zalophus californianus ) whiskers, which do not share the undulated structure. The results are discussed in the light of pinniped sensory biology and potential biomimetic applications. Text harbor seal Phoca vitulina HighWire Press (Stanford University) Journal of Experimental Biology 213 15 2665 2672 |
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HighWire Press (Stanford University) |
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English |
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Research Articles |
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Research Articles Hanke, Wolf Witte, Matthias Miersch, Lars Brede, Martin Oeffner, Johannes Michael, Mark Hanke, Frederike Leder, Alfred Dehnhardt, Guido Harbor seal vibrissa morphology suppresses vortex-induced vibrations |
topic_facet |
Research Articles |
description |
Harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina ) often live in dark and turbid waters, where their mystacial vibrissae, or whiskers, play an important role in orientation. Besides detecting and discriminating objects by direct touch, harbor seals use their whiskers to analyze water movements, for example those generated by prey fish or by conspecifics. Even the weak water movements left behind by objects that have passed by earlier can be sensed and followed accurately (hydrodynamic trail following). While scanning the water for these hydrodynamic signals at a swimming speed in the order of meters per second, the seal keeps its long and flexible whiskers in an abducted position, largely perpendicular to the swimming direction. Remarkably, the whiskers of harbor seals possess a specialized undulated surface structure, the function of which was, up to now, unknown. Here, we show that this structure effectively changes the vortex street behind the whiskers and reduces the vibrations that would otherwise be induced by the shedding of vortices from the whiskers (vortex-induced vibrations). Using force measurements, flow measurements and numerical simulations, we find that the dynamic forces on harbor seal whiskers are, by at least an order of magnitude, lower than those on sea lion ( Zalophus californianus ) whiskers, which do not share the undulated structure. The results are discussed in the light of pinniped sensory biology and potential biomimetic applications. |
format |
Text |
author |
Hanke, Wolf Witte, Matthias Miersch, Lars Brede, Martin Oeffner, Johannes Michael, Mark Hanke, Frederike Leder, Alfred Dehnhardt, Guido |
author_facet |
Hanke, Wolf Witte, Matthias Miersch, Lars Brede, Martin Oeffner, Johannes Michael, Mark Hanke, Frederike Leder, Alfred Dehnhardt, Guido |
author_sort |
Hanke, Wolf |
title |
Harbor seal vibrissa morphology suppresses vortex-induced vibrations |
title_short |
Harbor seal vibrissa morphology suppresses vortex-induced vibrations |
title_full |
Harbor seal vibrissa morphology suppresses vortex-induced vibrations |
title_fullStr |
Harbor seal vibrissa morphology suppresses vortex-induced vibrations |
title_full_unstemmed |
Harbor seal vibrissa morphology suppresses vortex-induced vibrations |
title_sort |
harbor seal vibrissa morphology suppresses vortex-induced vibrations |
publisher |
Company of Biologists |
publishDate |
2010 |
url |
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/short/213/15/2665 https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.043216 |
genre |
harbor seal Phoca vitulina |
genre_facet |
harbor seal Phoca vitulina |
op_relation |
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/short/213/15/2665 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.043216 |
op_rights |
Copyright (C) 2010, Company of Biologists |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.043216 |
container_title |
Journal of Experimental Biology |
container_volume |
213 |
container_issue |
15 |
container_start_page |
2665 |
op_container_end_page |
2672 |
_version_ |
1766022813384179712 |