Growth of a fish ear: 1. Quantitative analysis of hair cell and ganglion cell proliferation.

Proliferation (or addition) of inner ear sensory hair cells continues for a long time postembryonically in cartilaginous and bony fishes, and in amphibians. In contrast, proliferation only occurs during embryonic development in birds and mammals. However, detailed quantitative data on hair cell addition are not available for bony fishes. In order to quantify the extent of proliferation, we determined the number of sensory hair cells on the saccular sensory epithelium in specimens of the cichlid fish Astronotus ocellatus (the oscar) ranging from 2.0 to 19.0 cm in standard length (0.9-343 g). Ganglion cells were counted using serial sections of the saccular branch of the eighth nerve in animals of the same size range. The saccular macula of a 2.0 cm long (0.9 g) Astronotus contains approximately 5500 sensory hair cells; fish from 16 to 19 cm long have over 170 000 hair cells. The increase in number of sensory cells and the increase in both length and weight of the animals studied were statistically correlated (r2 = 0.8). The relative densities of saccular sensory cells in different epithelial regions remained constant in animals from 2.0 to 17 cm; in larger animals the cell density decreased somewhat. Based upon very conservative estimates of the rate of growth of Astronotus, we calculate that an average of 167 hair cells/day are added during the time when the cell population of the saccule increases. Ganglion cell number also increased approximately 4.8 times in the range of fish studied. The smallest animals in our study had about 150 ganglion cells per saccular epithelium, while the largest fish had over 600 ganglion cells. We estimate that the average ratio of hair cells to afferent fibers increases from about 30:1 in the smallest fish to over 300:1 in the largest animals.