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Ophidian Biotremology

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Biotremology: Physiology, Ecology, and Evolution

Part of the book series: Animal Signals and Communication ((ANISIGCOM,volume 8))

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Abstract

Snakes evince the ability to detect substrate-borne mechanical waves (through a variety of substrates) and surface mechanical waves; exactly how these specialized vertebrates accomplish this remains largely unknown. Behavioral and neurophysiological studies in snakes have struggled to differentiate the modalities, mechanisms, and central pathways for the airborne and ground-borne detection of mechanical waves. The snake cochlea is the best-known component of this sensory system; previous studies have shown that the snake cochlea has a rather consistent frequency response range, some intriguing differences in sensitivity, and a mechanical coupling to the middle ear ossicle. How pressure waves reach the middle ear ossicle/cochlea is not clear; whether or not there are pathways (perhaps utilizing the lung) to the cochlea that bypass the ossicle, and the relative role of the snake’s vestibular system in the detection of mechanical waves (if any), remain a mystery. The pathway by which neural signals transduced in the cochlea reach higher brain centers has not been determined in snakes. Perhaps most intriguing, we do not know how pressure stimuli encoded at the cochlea are integrated with stimuli encoded elsewhere on the snake’s body.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Catherine Carr for her considerate guidance, and Peter Kondrashov for his continued support. D.H. was supported by NIDCD 000436.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Dawei Han

  2. Department of Anatomy, Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, Kirksville, MO, USA

    Bruce A. Young

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  1. Dawei Han
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Correspondence to Bruce A. Young .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Science, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK, USA

    Peggy S. M. Hill

  2. Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, San Michele all’Adige, Trento, Italy

    Valerio Mazzoni

  3. Department of Organisms and Ecosystems Research, National Institute of Biology (NIB), Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Nataša Stritih-Peljhan

  4. Department of Organisms and Ecosystems Research, National Institute of Biology, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Meta Virant-Doberlet

  5. Center for Integrative Biodiversity Discovery, Museum für Naturkunde - Leibniz Institute for Research on Evolution and Biodiversity, Berlin, Germany

    Andreas Wessel

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Han, D., Young, B.A. (2022). Ophidian Biotremology. In: Hill, P.S.M., Mazzoni, V., Stritih-Peljhan, N., Virant-Doberlet, M., Wessel, A. (eds) Biotremology: Physiology, Ecology, and Evolution. Animal Signals and Communication, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97419-0_14

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