Hair cell heterogeneity and ultrasonic hearing: recent advances in understanding fish hearing

The past decade has seen a wealth of new data on the auditory capabilities and mechanisms of fishes. We now have a significantly better appreciation of the structure and function of the auditory system in fishes with regard to their peripheral and central anatomy, physiology, behaviour, sound source localization and hearing capabilities. This paper deals with two of the newest of these findings, hair cell heterogeneity and the detection of ultrasound. As a result of this recent work, we now know that fishes have several different types of sensory hair cells in both the ear and lateral line and there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that these hair cell types arose very early in the evolution of the octavolateralis system. There is also some evidence to suggest that the differences in the hair cell types have functional implications for the way the ear and lateral line of fishes detect and process stimuli. Behavioural studies have shown that, whereas most fishes can only detect sound to 1-3 kHz, several species of the genus Alosa (Clupeiformes, i.e. herrings and their relatives) can detect sounds up to 180 kHz (or even higher). It is suggested that this capability evolved so that these fishes can detect one of their major predators, echolocating dolphins. The mechanism for ultrasound detection remains obscure, though it is hypothesized that the highly derived utricle of the inner ear in these species is involved.