Hearing in Transitional Mammals: Predictions from the Middle-Ear Anatomy and Hearing Capabilities of Extant Mammals

Abstract

When the ancestors of terrestrial vertebrates moved from a water to a land environment they were confronted with the problem of sensing airborne sounds. One of the evolutionary response to this problem was the development of middle ears, which enabled more efficient collection of acoustic power from the air and transmission of the collected power to the inner ear (Wever and Lawrence 1954; Killion and Dallos 1979; Dallos 1984; Rosowski, Carney, Lynch, and Peake 1986).