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Thermal cameras, for example, focus specifically on 10 micron radiation: the slice of the spectrum closest to the heat emitted by living things. Dr. By measuring the strips, Baker discovered that they were also tuned to 10 microns—apparently placed on life’s most common heat signature. “This was my Eureka moment,” he said.
He found the same range in the equivalent hairs of a number of other species, including shrews, squirrels, rabbits, and a small mouse marsupial called the agile antechinus. The antechinus hair, in particular, proposed a “really sophisticated optical filtering” that starts with a less sensitive absorber at the top of the hair and ends with noise-eliminating patterns at the base.
Dr. Because these hairs are evenly distributed throughout the body, their potential infrared sensing powers could help a mouse “see” a cat or owl in any direction, Baker said.
Helmut Schmitz, who conducts research at the University of Bonn in Germany, Dr. Baker’s hunch that these hairs help small mammals detect predators is “plausible,” he said. infrared sensing mechanisms in fireflies. (These insects use organs in their exoskeletons to sense radiation, which takes them to the recently burned forests where they lay their eggs.)
But jumping directly from structural features to a biological function is risky, he said. To show that bristles serve this purpose, it is necessary to prove that the skin cells to which they are attached can recognize minute differences in temperature – something that has not been observed despite extensive study of these cells, Dr. said Schmitz.
Dr. Baker continued to explore this question by devising his own observational tests. (A recent study involves filming how mice respond to “Hot Eyes,” an infrared emitter that they mimic.s barn owl eyes.) These experiments were not controlled and were not included in the published article. But now that he has lit that metaphorical torch, Dr. Baker hopes to pass it on to others who can look deeper into these anatomical questions and design more rigorous experiments.
“Animals that work at night have secrets,” he said. “There must be a huge amount that we don’t understand.”
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