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Monotreme Sensory Systems

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior

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Synonyms

Echidna; Electroreception; Olfaction; Platypus; Prototheria

Introduction

Monotremes are a unique group of mammals confined to Australia and New Guinea. The lineage leading to modern monotremes probably diverged from that leading to therians (modern placental and marsupial mammals) as much as 220 million years ago (Yu et al. 2012), so there has been abundant time for independent evolution of sensory systems and the brain. Modern monotremes cannot be considered primitive or relict, and they are certainly not models for the ancestors of placental mammals. Monotremes have undergone just as long a period of evolution as have therians. Furthermore, although they do exhibit some primitive characteristics, living monotremes are also highly specialized animals with some remarkably advanced neural adaptations (e.g., electroreception and isocortical expansion). Like all mammals (including humans), they are therefore the result of mosaic evolution, where primitive and derived...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anatomy, School of Medical Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Ken W. S. Ashwell

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  1. Ken W. S. Ashwell
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Correspondence to Ken W. S. Ashwell .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University , Rochester, MI, USA

    Jennifer Vonk

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University Department of Psychology, Rochester, MI, USA

    Todd Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Jennifer Vonk

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Ashwell, K.W.S. (2019). Monotreme Sensory Systems. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_2066-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_2066-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47829-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47829-6

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