小柯机器人

中国科学院昆明动物研究所施鹏等研究人员合作发现新的具有回声定位能力的哺乳动物猪尾鼠。这一研究成果于2021年6月18日发表在国际学术期刊《科学》上。

基于多个独立的证据线索，研究人员发现猪尾鼠属（Typhlomys）能够进行回声定位。行为实验表明，这些鼠可以利用听觉和超声波脉冲在黑暗中定位和避开障碍物。它们的茎突骨的近端部分与鼓骨融合，这种形式以前只在喉部回声定位蝙蝠中看到。此外，研究人员发现了整个基因组中听力相关基因的汇聚以及猪尾鼠和回声定位哺乳动物之间回声定位相关基因prestin的趋同。

总之，这些研究结果表明，猪尾鼠能够进行回声定位，因此是一种新的回声定位哺乳动物谱系。

据了解，回声定位是利用反射声来感知环境特征。

附：英文原文

Title: Echolocation in soft-furred tree mice

Author: Kai He, Qi Liu, Dong-Ming Xu, Fei-Yan Qi, Jing Bai, Shui-Wang He, Peng Chen, Xin Zhou, Wan-Zhi Cai, Zhong-Zheng Chen, Zhen Liu, Xue-Long Jiang, Peng Shi

Issue&Volume: 2021/06/18

Abstract: Echolocation is the use of reflected sound to sense features of the environment. Here, we show that soft-furred tree mice (Typhlomys) echolocate based on multiple independent lines of evidence. Behavioral experiments show that these mice can locate and avoid obstacles in darkness using hearing and ultrasonic pulses. The proximal portion of their stylohyal bone fuses with the tympanic bone, a form previously only seen in laryngeally echolocating bats. Further, we found convergence of hearing-related genes across the genome and of the echolocation-related gene prestin between soft-furred tree mice and echolocating mammals. Together, our findings suggest that soft-furred tree mice are capable of echolocation, and thus are a new lineage of echolocating mammals.

DOI: 10.1126/science.aay1513

Source: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6548/eaay1513