These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Seismic communication in a blind subterranean mammal: a major somatosensory mechanism in adaptive evolution underground.
    Author: Nevo E, Heth G, Pratt H.
    Journal: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A; 1991 Feb 15; 88(4):1256-60. PubMed ID: 1996326.
    Abstract:
    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.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]