Pinnipeds like seals and sea lions use their whiskers to hunt their prey in dark and turbid situations. The digitized data was cleaned and converted into a 3D model using CATIA.
Research has shown this is the best shape to sense the speed and direction of the wakes while minimising the vibrating 'noise' created by the sea lion’s own swimming.
In an environment equally as harsh as it is beautiful, be immersed in a classic coming of age tale guided by one of Australia’s most unique, intelligent, and playful animals. Between a jagged cliff face and a roaring ocean, lives a colony of Australian Sea Lions. While the cross sections of whiskers in land mammals are almost perfectly circular, seal and sea lion whiskers are somewhat flattened, in the shape of an oval.
For the Sea Lions as a whole, the meet was a success.
Team Thunder won a more individual events (22-18) than Team Whiskers, but Team Whiskers won 4 out of the 6 Relays and that proved to be the difference in the meet. Thus, the forces acting at the base of a seal whisker were on average more than 10 times lower than those at the hair base of a sea lion whisker. Herein the flow around a 3D printed sea lion head, with integrated whiskers of comparable geometry and material properties to a real seal lion, is investigated when exposed to vortex streets generated by cylindrical bluff bodies.
The upper, smooth whisker belongs to a California sea lion.
New research on seal and sea lion whiskers help explain how they are adapted to do just that. Scanned data of sea lion body was acquired from Museo delle Scienze, Italy. Advertisement Most mammals have facial whiskers (humans are … Pinnipeds like seals and sea lions use their whiskers to hunt their prey in dark and turbid situations. For each species, vibrissae of different sizes were used, taken from comparable positions on the vibrissal pads (row D, columns 1, 2 and 3 in the harbour seal and columns 2, 4 and 6 … The follicle of each whisker is connected to many nerves, allowing an animal to “feel” its surroundings by picking up tiny vibrations in air or water. Sea lions use their whiskers to guide these fast changes in direction. Each vibrissa has the ability to rotate, much like a straw inside a bottle. On the head of the sea lion, 38 holes of 0.8 mm diameter were modelled on either side of the head on six rows as mentioned in Sawyer et al. The California sea lion has 38 whiskers on each side of its face, which can grow up to 20 cm. Sea lions are able to detect these wakes and follow them, just by using their whiskers. Well done girls and fab job @MissAlyxMilne! Model and whisker setup.
The purpose was to measure whisker movements and control in those species and compare them with terrestrial species such as rats and shrews.