Faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment, Department of Historical Geology-Palaeontology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 15784, Zografos, Greece.
Department of Palaeobiology, Swedish Museum of Natural History, SE-10405, Stockholm, Sweden.
Commun Biol. 2023 Aug 17;6(1):747. doi: 10.1038/s42003-023-05135-z.
Pinnipeds (seals and related species) use their whiskers to explore their environment and locate their prey. Today they live mostly in marine habitats and are adapted for a highly specialised amphibious lifestyle with their flippers for locomotion and a hydrodynamically streamlined body. The earliest pinnipeds, however, lived on land and in freshwater habitats, much like mustelids today. Here we reconstruct the underwater foraging behaviour of one of these earliest pinnipeds (Potamotherium), focusing in particular on how it used its whiskers (vibrissae). For this purpose, we analyse the coronal gyrus of the brain of 7 fossil and 31 extant carnivorans. This region receives somatosensory input from the head. Our results show that the reliance on whiskers in modern pinnipeds is an ancestral feature that favoured survival of stem pinnipeds in marine habitats. This study provides insights into an impressive ecological transition in carnivoran evolution: from terrestrial to amphibious marine species. Adaptations for underwater foraging were crucial for this transition.
鳍足类动物（海豹及相关物种）利用触须来探索环境并定位猎物。如今，它们主要生活在海洋栖息地，适应高度特化的半水生生活方式，鳍状肢用于移动，身体呈流体动力学流线型。然而，最早的鳍足类动物生活在陆地和淡水栖息地，与今天的鼬科动物非常相似。在这里，我们重建了其中一种最早的鳍足类动物（水獭）的水下觅食行为，特别关注它如何使用触须（胡须）。为此，我们分析了 7 种化石和 31 种现存食肉动物的大脑冠状回。该区域从头部接收体感输入。我们的结果表明，现代鳍足类动物对触须的依赖是一种古老的特征，有利于原始鳍足类动物在海洋栖息地的生存。这项研究为食肉动物进化中令人印象深刻的生态转变提供了新的见解：从陆地到半水生海洋物种。适应水下觅食对于这种转变至关重要。
