Researchers have found that moveable whiskers on rats and mice were an important milestone in the evolution of mammals from reptiles.
The team used high-speed digital video recording and automatic tracking to discover how rodents move their whiskers back-and-forth at high speed.
This behavior, known as whisking, allows mice or rats to accurately determine the position, shape and texture of objects, make decisions about objects, and use the information to build environmental maps.
The team found that rodents move their whiskers back-and-forth when running in a straight line, but when turning they bias their whisker movements in the direction of a turn.
The researchers have shown that whisking is also seen in the grey short-tailed opossum. This animal has similarities to an early mammal that would have lived over 125 million years ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment