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fromwww.npr.org
3 days agoHow seals' whiskers make them master underwater hunters
Harbor seals use their whiskers to sense water movements and track fish, enhancing their hunting abilities.
An elephant's trunk is a marvelous thing, flexible enough to bend and stretch as it forages for food, but also stiff enough to grasp and maneuver even delicate objects like peanuts or a tortilla chip. That's because the trunk is highly sensitive when it comes to sensing touch. Scientists have determined that the whiskers lining the trunk are crucial for that sensitivity thanks to their unique structure, amounting to a kind of innate "material intelligence, according to a new paper published in the journal Science.