Flying Primates? Megabats Have the Advanced Pathway from Eye to Midbrain
- 14 March 1986
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 231 (4743), 1304-1306
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.3945827
Abstract
The pattern of connections between the retina and midbrain has been determined with electrophysiological and neuroanatomical methods in bats representing the two major subdivisions of the Chiroptera. Megachiropteran fruit bats (megabats), Pteropus spp., were found to have an advanced retinotectal pathway with a vertical hemidecussation of the kind previously found only in primates. In contrast, the microchiropteran bat Macroderma gigas has the "ancestral" or symplesiomorphous pattern of retinotectal connections so far found in all vertebrates except primates. In addition to linking primates and megachiropteran bats, these findings suggest that flight may have evolved twice among the mammals.This publication has 17 references indexed in Scilit:
- Evidence for echolocation in the oldest known batsNature, 1985
- A variant of the mammalian somatotopic map in a batNature, 1985
- Echolocation: Implications for Ecology and Evolution of BatsThe Quarterly Review of Biology, 1984
- Sensory representation in reptilian optic tectum: Some comparisons with mammalsJournal of Comparative Neurology, 1981
- The distribution of neurons projecting from the retina and visual cortex to the thalamus and tectum opticum of the barn owl, Tyto alba, and the burrowing owl, Speotyto cuniculariaJournal of Comparative Neurology, 1981
- A neurophysiological determination of the vertical horopter in the cat and owlJournal of Comparative Neurology, 1979
- Representation of the complete retina in the contralateral superior colliculus of some mammalsBrain Research, 1974
- True Affinities of Propotto leakeyi Simpson 1967Nature, 1969
- Organization of the visual projection upon the optic tectum of some freshwater fishJournal of Comparative Neurology, 1965
- The mechanism of vision. VII. The projection of the retina upon the primary optic centers in the ratJournal of Comparative Neurology, 1934