... of facial receptors would – as is the case for terrestrial mammals – enhance the dive response, (2) increasing the facial area stimulated would lead to a more intense bradycardia, and (3) cold water would elicit a more pronounced bradycardia than warm water. Three harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina...

...Wolf Hanke; Matthias Witte; Lars Miersch; Martin Brede; Johannes Oeffner; Mark Michael; Frederike Hanke; Alfred Leder; Guido Dehnhardt SUMMARY Harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina ) often live in dark and turbid waters, where their mystacial vibrissae, or whiskers, play an important role in orientation...

.... The objective of this study was to reexamine the fiber type distribution throughout the primary locomotory muscles of the harbor seal Phoca vitulina . Results from immunohistochemical (IHC) fiber typing indicated that harbor seal swimming muscles (the epaxial muscles) are composed of 47.4% type I (slow twitch...

... to maintain an aerobic, fat-based metabolism during diving. The goal of this study was to determine whether the heart, kidneys and splanchnic organs have an elevated V V (mt) and CS and HOAD activities as parallel adaptations for sustaining aerobic metabolism and normal function during hypoxia in harbor seals...