The hearing gene Prestin unites echolocating bats and whales.
Echolocation is a sensory mechanism for locating, ranging and identifying objects which involves the emission of calls into the environment and listening to the echoes returning from objects [1]. Only microbats and toothed whales have acquired sophisticated echolocation, indispensable for their orientation and foraging [1]. Although the bat and whale biosonars originated independently and differ substantially in many aspects [2], we here report the surprising finding that the bottlenose dolphin, a toothed whale, is clustered with microbats in the gene tree constructed using protein sequences encoded by the hearing gene Prestin.
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
Ying
Y
Li
Zhen
Z
Liu
Peng
P
Shi
Jianzhi
J
Zhang
D000818:Animals; D027321:Anion Transport Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002685:Chiroptera / Q000235:genetics*; D004455:Echolocation; D006309:Hearing / Q000235:genetics*; D014907:Whales / Q000235:genetics*
D027321:Anion Transport Proteins