Giant whales elastic cables used to capture prey – Today Chronicle (press release) (Registration) (blog)

 The minke whale in its mouth and tongue a unique structure of nerves that can double its length and then collected as if it were a bungee cord, according to a discovery of the University of British Columbia (UCB). See Also Found dwarf sperm whale fossil
 

 These resilient ribs explain how the great whales are able to deploy a large bag under the mouth to capture lots of prey when they dive for food. See Also Scientists will track blue whales through sound
 

 “This finding was totally unexpected and different from other nerve structures we’ve seen in vertebrates, whose length is much more fixed,” said Wayne Vogl, Department of Physiological Science and Cellular UCB. See Also They recorded more than 40 000 songs of blue whales in the Antarctic
 

 The whales, which can weigh up to 80 tons, are the largest group of bearded cetaceans, among which are the blue whale and the fin.
 

 Feeding, these whales mouth fills with water as if it were filled with floating dams and then they gradually expelling water through bristles called baleen giant balloon. A whale can fill the mouth, one “bite” with an amount of water that exceeds the volume of the animal.
 

 The feeding mechanism of the fin whales will require major changes in the anatomy of the tongue and mouth to allow greater deformation and “now we also need major changes in the nerves and tissues to withstand the strain,” he added scientist.
 

 In humans, stretching the nerves usually damaged, but these whales nerves are gathered in a sort of central package, so that nerve fibers really do not stretch but simply unfold.
 

 “Our next step is to better understand how this central bundle of nerves is bent to allow the nerves extend and collect quickly during the feeding process,” the zoologist Robert Shadwick, the same school.
 

 Researchers still do not know if other animals have similar mechanisms, for example in the gorges of the frogs, which also swell, or in long tongues of chameleons.
 

 This discovery evidence “how little we know about the basic anatomy of large animals that live in the oceans today.”
 

 And added “to the growing list of evolutionary solutions that whales have developed in response to the challenges that they planned the marine environment over millions of years,” said Nick Pyenson, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, USA.
 

 evn
                                                                                                                                                     

Print