Pinnipeds orient and control their whiskers: a study on Pacific walrus, California sea lion and Harbor seal
Whisker touch is an active sensory system. Previous studies in Pinnipeds have adopted relatively stationary tasks to judge tactile sensitivity, which may not accurately promote natural whisker movements and behaviours. This study developed a novel feeding task, termed fish sweeping to encourage whis...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:7192888 2023-05-15T16:33:06+02:00 Pinnipeds orient and control their whiskers: a study on Pacific walrus, California sea lion and Harbor seal Milne, Alyxandra O. Smith, Catherine Orton, Llwyd D. Sullivan, Matthew S. Grant, Robyn A. 2020-02-20 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7192888/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32077991 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-020-01408-8 en eng Springer Berlin Heidelberg http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7192888/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32077991 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00359-020-01408-8 © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. CC-BY Original Paper Text 2020 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-020-01408-8 2020-05-10T00:27:39Z Whisker touch is an active sensory system. Previous studies in Pinnipeds have adopted relatively stationary tasks to judge tactile sensitivity, which may not accurately promote natural whisker movements and behaviours. This study developed a novel feeding task, termed fish sweeping to encourage whisker movements. Head and whisker movements were tracked from video footage in Harbor seal (Phoca vitulina), California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) and Pacific walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens). All species oriented their head towards the moving fish target and moved their whiskers during the task. Some species also engaged in whisker control behaviours, including head-turning asymmetry in the Pacific walrus, and contact-induced asymmetry in the Pacific walrus and California sea lion: behaviours that have only previously been observed in terrestrial mammals. This study confirms that Pinnipeds should be thought of as whisker specialists, and that whisker control (movement and positioning) is an important aspect of touch sensing in these animals, especially in sea lions and walruses. That the California sea lion controls whisker movement in relation to an object, and also had large values of whisker amplitude, spread and asymmetry, suggests that California sea lions are a promising model with which to further explore active touch sensing. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s00359-020-01408-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Text harbor seal Odobenus rosmarus Phoca vitulina walrus* PubMed Central (PMC) Pacific Journal of Comparative Physiology A 206 3 441 451 |
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Original Paper |
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Original Paper Milne, Alyxandra O. Smith, Catherine Orton, Llwyd D. Sullivan, Matthew S. Grant, Robyn A. Pinnipeds orient and control their whiskers: a study on Pacific walrus, California sea lion and Harbor seal |
topic_facet |
Original Paper |
description |
Whisker touch is an active sensory system. Previous studies in Pinnipeds have adopted relatively stationary tasks to judge tactile sensitivity, which may not accurately promote natural whisker movements and behaviours. This study developed a novel feeding task, termed fish sweeping to encourage whisker movements. Head and whisker movements were tracked from video footage in Harbor seal (Phoca vitulina), California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) and Pacific walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens). All species oriented their head towards the moving fish target and moved their whiskers during the task. Some species also engaged in whisker control behaviours, including head-turning asymmetry in the Pacific walrus, and contact-induced asymmetry in the Pacific walrus and California sea lion: behaviours that have only previously been observed in terrestrial mammals. This study confirms that Pinnipeds should be thought of as whisker specialists, and that whisker control (movement and positioning) is an important aspect of touch sensing in these animals, especially in sea lions and walruses. That the California sea lion controls whisker movement in relation to an object, and also had large values of whisker amplitude, spread and asymmetry, suggests that California sea lions are a promising model with which to further explore active touch sensing. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s00359-020-01408-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format |
Text |
author |
Milne, Alyxandra O. Smith, Catherine Orton, Llwyd D. Sullivan, Matthew S. Grant, Robyn A. |
author_facet |
Milne, Alyxandra O. Smith, Catherine Orton, Llwyd D. Sullivan, Matthew S. Grant, Robyn A. |
author_sort |
Milne, Alyxandra O. |
title |
Pinnipeds orient and control their whiskers: a study on Pacific walrus, California sea lion and Harbor seal |
title_short |
Pinnipeds orient and control their whiskers: a study on Pacific walrus, California sea lion and Harbor seal |
title_full |
Pinnipeds orient and control their whiskers: a study on Pacific walrus, California sea lion and Harbor seal |
title_fullStr |
Pinnipeds orient and control their whiskers: a study on Pacific walrus, California sea lion and Harbor seal |
title_full_unstemmed |
Pinnipeds orient and control their whiskers: a study on Pacific walrus, California sea lion and Harbor seal |
title_sort |
pinnipeds orient and control their whiskers: a study on pacific walrus, california sea lion and harbor seal |
publisher |
Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7192888/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32077991 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-020-01408-8 |
geographic |
Pacific |
geographic_facet |
Pacific |
genre |
harbor seal Odobenus rosmarus Phoca vitulina walrus* |
genre_facet |
harbor seal Odobenus rosmarus Phoca vitulina walrus* |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7192888/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32077991 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00359-020-01408-8 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-020-01408-8 |
container_title |
Journal of Comparative Physiology A |
container_volume |
206 |
container_issue |
3 |
container_start_page |
441 |
op_container_end_page |
451 |
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1766022814576410624 |