biomechanics
- Humeral loads during swimming and walking in turtles: implications for morphological change during aquatic reinvasions
Summary: Turtle humeri experience reduced torsional loads during swimming compared with terrestrial walking. Such reductions may have facilitated the transition from tubular to flattened limb bones in secondarily aquatic tetrapods.
- Escaping blood-fed malaria mosquitoes minimize tactile detection without compromising on take-off speed
Highlighted Article: Malaria mosquitoes have a specialized take-off strategy that is both fast and extremely stealthy; they can use this strategy to successfully escape from a host after blood-feeding.
- Take-off mechanisms in parasitoid wasps
Summary: Parasitoid wasps use three strategies to take off: propulsion by rapid leg movements, propulsion by flapping wing movements and a combination of the two. Leg movements provide the most energy-efficient mechanism.
- A novel, bounding gait in swimming turtles: implications for aquatic locomotor diversity
Summary: The pleurodire turtle Emydura subglobosa can swim using a bounding gait, potentially facilitated by longer muscle fascicle lengths than in other species, and this may have implications for the locomotor evolution of the lineage.
- Skeletal stiffening in an amphibious fish out of water is a response to increased body weight
Highlighted Article: Did weight responsiveness evolve during the tetrapod invasion of land or is it ubiquitous among vertebrates? Skeletal stiffening in amphibious fish out of water supports the latter hypothesis.
- A peculiar mechanism of bite-force enhancement in lungless salamanders revealed by a new geometric method for modeling muscle moments
Summary: Desmognathine salamanders achieve a strong bite with a unique ligamentous mechanism that amplifies muscle force.
- Mechanical properties of sediment determine burrowing success and influence distribution of two lugworm species
Summary: Field-based measurements link distribution of two ecosystem engineer lugworm species with the mechanical properties of the sediment, their differential burrowing success and morphological features.
- Performance, morphology and control of power-amplified mandibles in the trap-jaw ant Myrmoteras (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)
Summary: The kinematics, anatomy and power-amplification mechanism for trap-jaw ants in the genus Myrmoteras, one of four convergent ant lineages with spring-loaded mandibles, are described.
- Rib kinematics during lung ventilation in the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis): an XROMM analysis
Summary: Using XROMM to test how well joint anatomy predicts rib motion during breathing in crocodylians, our best living model for the earliest archosaurs.
- Changes in mechanical work during neural adaptation to asymmetric locomotion
Summary: Minimizing mechanical work performed by the legs may drive locomotor adaptation, with wide relevance for the control of legged locomotion and motor learning in novel environments.