Seismic communication in a blind subterranean mammal: a major somatosensory mechanism in adaptive evolution underground.
Seismic communication, through low-frequency and patterned substrate-borne vibrations that are generated by head thumping, and which travel long distances underground, is important in the nonvisual communication of subterranean mole rats of the Spalax ehrenbergi superspecies (2n = 52, 54, 58, and 60) in Israel. This importance pertains both intraspecifically in adaptation and interspecifically in speciation. Neurophysiologic, behavioral, and anatomic findings in this study suggest that the mechanism of long-distance seismic communication is basically somatosensory and is independent of the auditory mechanism. Seismic communication thus appears to be a channel of communication important in the evolution of subterranean mammals that display major adaptation to life underground.
Nevo
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E
Institute of Evolution, University of Haifa, Israel.
Heth
G
G
Pratt
H
H
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D001766:Blindness; D003142:Communication; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D012377:Rodentia / Q000502:physiology*; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D013045:Species Specificity; D014732:Vibration