| Comments |
P.174 left column bottom paragraph: "The mammalian cochlea of the inner ear is a fluid-filled duct. It is coiled into a compartment within the temporal bone on either side of the head. In mammalian species, the structure varies less in size than does the mass of the animal, but the temporal bone itself may vary greatly in dimensions. Sound is funneled through outer ear and transmitted through the middle ear to the cochlear fluids where the final effect is to stimulate, appropriately, the sensory hair cells of the cochlea. As examples of the scale in two important experimental animals, the uncoiled length of the cochlea of a mouse is ∼11 mm and that of a guinea pig 19 mm. For comparison, the uncoiled length of a human cochlea is ∼34 mm." |