Seals and sea lions like many mammals, possess whiskers on the sides of their face that are crucial for survival behaviours including navigation, hunting and food capture. Whiskers are adapted in order to complete a range of complex tasks in mammals. A recent paper by Dr. Milne, in collaboration with Blackpool Zoo, showed that California sea lion do active touch sensing with their whiskers and are a useful model to further study active touch sensing in mammals.
This project received huge public interest from Granada ITV and BBC as well as publishing three high quality papers. This PhD studentship will continue to develop this work by:
- Further measuring whisker and head movements while challenging animals with tactile and visual distractors during hydrodynamic tasks.
- Testing whisker movements and strategies between different discrimination task under water with various water pressures.
- Perform a comparative analysis of whisker growth between two pinniped families, the eared seals and the true seals (including Harbor seals and South African fur seals).
To do this we will photograph and measure whisker length, width and number. This PhD project will help us to understand the function and control of vibrissal active touch cross more species of pinnipeds. It will also recommend sensory enrichment strategies for pinnipeds to promote healthy brain development, which has implications for the welfare of managed animals.
This PhD aims:
- To compare whisker growth of two different pinniped species, the Harbor Seal from the True Seal family and the South African Fur Seal from the Eared Seal family
- To characterise how sea lion whisker movements function when completing discrimination tasks under different water pressures
- To compare how sea lion whisker touch might function differently between two different whisker shapes seen in seals and sea lions during a hydrodynamic task
The successful candidate will be based within Manchester Met’s Ecology and Environment research centre.