Meeting Abstract
Seals use their specialized vibrissae to track hydrodynamic trails and find their prey. This ability has generated considerable attention in engineering research and inspired attempts to create biomimetic artificial sensors. Understanding the structure and function of the biological system is crucial to these efforts. Due to sample availability and substantial behavioral data on its hydrodynamic tracking abilities, the harbor seal is often used as a model species to characterize the vibrissal system in pinnipeds. However, it is important to note that considerable variation in vibrissal surface morphology, number and distribution of vibrissae, and overall array architecture exists between species. We suspect that this variation is linked to foraging specialization, and we present methodologies for feature comparison at the vibrissal and array levels. An analysis of intra-array nearest-neighbor distances is explored to quantify array spacing, using photogrammetric techniques to standardize inter-array comparisons. This method is validated against direct measurements on necropsy specimens and used to generate comparative mystacial bed maps of five phocid species, using field and laboratory photographic data. CT scanning of individual vibrissae with an enhanced contrast staining technique is used to generate 3D surface models of vibrissae for comparison of surface morphology. The assessment of morphological features using phylogenetic matrices will establish a basis for comparing vibrissal structure to foraging specialization across species.
