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Full-Text Articles in Animal Studies
Origin And Evolution Of Large Brains In Toothed Whales, Lori Marino, Daniel W. Mcshea, Mark D. Uhen
Origin And Evolution Of Large Brains In Toothed Whales, Lori Marino, Daniel W. Mcshea, Mark D. Uhen
Veterinary Science and Medicine Collection
Toothed whales (order Cetacea: suborder Odontoceti) are highly encephalized, possessing brains that are significantly larger than expected for their body sizes. In particular, the odontocete superfamily Delphinoidea (dolphins, porpoises, belugas, and narwhals) comprises numerous species with encephalization levels second only to modern humans and greater than all other mammals. Odontocetes have also demonstrated behavioral faculties previously only ascribed to humans and, to some extent, other great apes. How did the large brains of odontocetes evolve? To begin to investigate this question, we quantified and averaged estimates of brain and body size for 36 fossil cetacean species using computed tomography and …
Neuroanatomy Of The Killer Whale (Orcinus Orca) From Magnetic Resonance Images, Lori Marino, Chet C. Sherwood, Bradley N. Delman, Cheuk Y. Tang, Thomas P. Naidisch, Patrick R. Hof
Neuroanatomy Of The Killer Whale (Orcinus Orca) From Magnetic Resonance Images, Lori Marino, Chet C. Sherwood, Bradley N. Delman, Cheuk Y. Tang, Thomas P. Naidisch, Patrick R. Hof
Veterinary Science and Medicine Collection
This article presents the first series of MRI-based anatomically labeled sectioned images of the brain of the killer whale (Orcinus orca). Magnetic resonance images of the brain of an adult killer whale were acquired in the coronal and axial planes. The gross morphology of the killer whale brain is comparable in some respects to that of other odontocete brains, including the unusual spatial arrangement of midbrain structures. There are also intriguing differences. Cerebral hemispheres appear extremely convoluted and, in contrast to smaller cetacean species, the killer whale brain possesses an exceptional degree of cortical elaboration in the insular cortex, temporal …