The sensory world of vertebrates

Vertebrate sensory adaptations have inspired naturalists and biologists to explore the origins of complex structures like the eye or ear, and to advance hypotheses on ecological explanations for the vertebrate head and its placodes. Some of the articles within this special issue explore the capacity of our senses to promote adaptive responses-our senses are our crucial guides through our complex world. However, sensory structures themselves are anatomically complex and challenging to study. Multiple contributions to this special issue explain how modern, cutting-edge visualization techniques are revolutionizing our understanding of sensory anatomy. The theme of structural complexity extends to many other contributions. What holds all of these works together is the exploratory experience of sensing cues in an expansive world, with that being a parallel to the adaptive radiation of all vertebrates, from the sea to land and beyond.