The natural history of a lost sense

This thesis is an investigation of the vomeronasal organ, which senses pheromones. It traces the use of the organ in land-dwelling vertebrates, and suggests evidence that the organ is vestigial in humans and Old World monkeys. Possible explanations for the loss of the vomeronasal organ in these groups are described and evaluated. Notably, the development of tri-color vision may have replaced pheromones for sexual selection in these lineages. This may explain the human proclivity for visual information over pheromonal cues.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Steiner, Siri Lefren

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Thomas Levenson.

• Graduate Program in Science Writing.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/39441

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/39441