Acute seismic sensitivity in the bullfrog ear

Abstract

Single axons in the auditory/vestibular nerve of the American bullfrog exhibit by far the most exquisite sensitivity to substrate-borne vibration yet reported for a quadruped vertebrate. Earlier dye-injection studies revealed that these axons, which are relatively insensitive to airborne sound, originate at the saccular and lagenar maculae of the bullfrog inner ear. The more sensitive axons exhibited clear responses to vibratory sinusoids with peak accelerations as low as 0.005 cm/s2.