Sensory Evolution on the Threshold

From crocodiles and penguins to seals and whales, this comprehensive and authoritative synthesis explores the function and evolution of sensory systems in animals whose ancestors lived on land. Together, the contributors explore the dramatic transformation of smell, taste, sight, hearing, balance, mechanoreception, magnetoreception, and electroreception that occurred as lineages of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals returned to aquatic environments. Framed by a concise introduction to the evolutionary history of the animals in the book and an essay on the integration between the sense organs at the water-to-land threshold, each chapter integrates data from fields including sensory physiology, anatomy, paleontology, and neurobiology. A one-stop source for information on the sense organs of secondarily aquatic tetrapods,Senses on the Thresholdsheds new light on both the evolution of aquatic vertebrates and on the sensory biology of their astonishing transition.

J. G. M. Thewissen is Professor of Anatomy at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine.