Mammalian noses, including the prominent snout that graces the head of the horse, are an evolutionary novelty – and also probably aided brain development, researchers have found.
Evidence in a just-published study shows that the characteristic facial structure of mammals with their prominent noses is a comparatively new phenomenon in evolutionary terms. It was the highly developed sense of smell in most mammals that likely also favored brain development.
The findings of the study, by Dr Ingmar Werneburg of the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen in Germany, together with Japanese scientists, are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Unlike other terrestrial vertebrates, most mammals have protruding, flexible noses that significantly enhance the senses of smell and touch.
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“Nevertheless, until now, science regarded the evolution of the reptilian and mammalian faces as relatively comparable,” explains Werneburg, the study’s co-author and a researcher at the Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the university.
“Now we are able to show that the mammalian snout represents a drastic deviation from the common ground pattern – and a new development in evolutionary terms.”
