Harbor seal vibrissa morphology suppresses vortex-induced vibrations

The Journal of Experimental Biology
W HankeGuido Dehnhardt

Abstract

Harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) often live in dark and turbid waters, where their mystacial vibrissae, or whiskers, play an important role in orientation. Besides detecting and discriminating objects by direct touch, harbor seals use their whiskers to analyze water movements, for example those generated by prey fish or by conspecifics. Even the weak water movements left behind by objects that have passed by earlier can be sensed and followed accurately (hydrodynamic trail following). While scanning the water for these hydrodynamic signals at a swimming speed in the order of meters per second, the seal keeps its long and flexible whiskers in an abducted position, largely perpendicular to the swimming direction. Remarkably, the whiskers of harbor seals possess a specialized undulated surface structure, the function of which was, up to now, unknown. Here, we show that this structure effectively changes the vortex street behind the whiskers and reduces the vibrations that would otherwise be induced by the shedding of vortices from the whiskers (vortex-induced vibrations). Using force measurements, flow measurements and numerical simulations, we find that the dynamic forces on harbor seal whiskers are, by at least an order of magnitud...Continue Reading

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Citations

Nov 21, 2013·ELife·Samuel Andrew HiresDavid Golomb
Oct 5, 2011·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·L MierschG Dehnhardt
Apr 18, 2012·PloS One·Carly C GinterChristopher D Marshall
May 18, 2011·Integrative and Comparative Biology·Frank E FishLaurens E Howle
Oct 22, 2014·The Anatomical Record : Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology·Kristen A McgovernRandall W Davis
Jan 3, 2012·Current Opinion in Neurobiology·Kenneth C Catania
Feb 19, 2015·Current Biology : CB·Nicholas J Sofroniew, Karel Svoboda
Feb 6, 2015·Journal of the Royal Society, Interface·Nicola ErdsackWolf Hanke
Aug 8, 2013·PloS One·Christin T MurphyDavid A Mann
Jul 2, 2015·PloS One·Carly C Ginter SummarellChristopher D Marshall
Jun 1, 2018·Journal of the Royal Society, Interface·Madeleine SealeNaomi Nakayama
Oct 21, 2010·Journal of Comparative Physiology. A, Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology·Nele GläserWolf Hanke
May 11, 2013·Journal of Comparative Physiology. A, Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology·Joseph C GaspardDavid A Mann
Sep 7, 2019·Scientific Reports·Muthukumar Muthuramalingam, Christoph Bruecker
Aug 2, 2020·Journal of Morphology·Gary DougillRobyn A Grant
Nov 28, 2012·Journal of Comparative Physiology. A, Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology·Wolf HankeGuido Dehnhardt
Sep 1, 2016·Bioinspiration & Biomimetics·William C EberhardtColleen Reichmuth
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Jun 10, 2015·The Journal of Experimental Biology·Christin T MurphyDavid Mann
Jun 3, 2021·The Anatomical Record : Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology·Alyx O MilneRobyn A Grant
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Oct 27, 2021·Journal of the Royal Society, Interface·Xingwen ZhengAjay Giri Prakash Kottapalli

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