Snout Detects Pressure

Biological Strategy

Star-nosed mole

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Sense Touch and Mechanical Forces in a Living System

Perceiving touch enables living systems to detect other living systems around them and environmental conditions, such as air movement, water currents, and temperature. This ability can help them sense danger as well as opportunity, as when a Venus flytrap’s hairs sense the presence of an insect to eat. Sometimes, a living system senses touch or mechanical forces at a coarse scale; other times, at a sensitive scale that detects very subtle differences. For example, a human elbow is not nearly as sensitive to textures as human fingertips. Fingertips have dermal ridges and many nerve endings that increase sensitivity, enabling them to explore the environment in detailed ways. Elbows don’t need to sense at that level of detail.

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Mammals

Class Mammalia (“breast”): Bats, cats, whales, horses, humans

Mammals make up less than 1% of all animals on earth, but they include some of the most well-known species. We know first-hand some of the characteristics that make mammals unique, like having hair, being able to sweat, and producing milk through mammary glands. Another critical shared feature is a set of highly-specialized teeth. Unlike sharks or alligators, for example, whose teeth are generally all the same size and shape, mammals have differently shaped teeth in different areas of the jaws to target specific foods or foraging strategies.

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The snout of talpids can detect pressure and other sensory input thanks to the Eimer's gland, a mechanosensory organ.

Learn more about the star-nosed mole’s sensory abilities in Adelheid Fischer’s “The Science of Seeing: It’s the Mix Not The Match That Makes the Magnificent Mole” on page 34 of Zygote Quarterly:

“Talpids also possess an Eimer’s , a mechanosensory organ present on the rhinarium. This organ is highly sensitive and responds to the onset and offset of pressure, to sustained depression of the epidermis, and to changes in the angle of the stimulation. This organ may be used to detect prey by determining surface texture, and in the star-nosed moles the Eimer’s gland may detect the electrical fields of prey in water.” (Fowler and Miller 2003:304)

Last Updated November 3, 2020

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