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Science Forum Index » Bio Evolution Forum » Do Fish have Good Taste, or Do They Only Taste Good?
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| Author |
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| Lorentz |
 Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:13 am |
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Guest
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Fish have both a sense of smell (olfaction) and a sense of taste
(gustation). The two senses are governed by different sense cells. In
the water, both senses act at a distance. Gustation is supposed to be
more specific as a chemical sensor than olfaction. The articles, the
books and links I looked up uniformly say that olfaction acts at a
distance while gustation acts at close range.
To me, gustation in fish is the most mysterious sense.
Olfaction in fish is clearly associated with with organs (nare) that
are homologous to the olfaction organs (nostrils)in mammals. However,
fish "tongues" are bone structures that have no taste buds. The fish
tongues are not homologous to mammalian tongues, and mammals have
nothing like them. The taste buds of mammals are restricted to the
tongue (a muscle). The taste buds in fish are distributed on the
barbels of catfish and the skin of sharks.
Hence my questions:
1) Why, or rather how, is gustation limited to short range in fish?
2) Have there been any experimental studies testing the range of
gustation in fish?
3) How does anybody even know that gustation acts at closer range in
fish?
4) Is gustation in fish really homologous to the sense of taste in
mammals?
5) Is the mammalian tongue homologous to barbels in catfish? |
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