Evolution of the cochlea signals that displace the eardrum by a mere picometre. Because of its prominence and preserved state in the fossil record, until recently, the ear had been used to determine phylogeny. The ear itself contains different portions, including the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear and all of these show evolutionary changes that are often unique to each lineage [14]. It was the independent evolution of a tympanic middle ear in the Triassic era that produced strong selection pressures towards improved hearing organs in the separate lineages of land vertebrates. The cochlea is the tri-chambered auditory detection portion
Cochlea ions back to the endolymph after mechanotransduction in hair cells. Importantly, gap junction channels are found between cochlear supporting cells, but not auditory hair cells. In 2009, engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created an electronic chip that can quickly analyze a very large range of radio frequencies while using only a fraction of the power needed for existing technologies; its design specifically mimics a cochlea. The coiled form of cochlea is unique to mammals. In birds and in other non-mammalian vertebrates, the compartment containing the sensory cells for hearing is occasionally also called "cochlea," despite not being coiled