The vast diversity of morphologies,body size,and lifestyles of snakes represents an important source of information that can be used to derive bio-inspired robots through a biology-push and pull *** understanding of t...
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The vast diversity of morphologies,body size,and lifestyles of snakes represents an important source of information that can be used to derive bio-inspired robots through a biology-push and pull *** understanding of the detailed kinematics of swimming snakes is a fundamental prerequisite to conceive and design bio-inspired aquatic snake ***,only limited information is available on the kinematics of swimming *** and accurate methods are needed to fill this knowledge *** the present paper,three existing methods were compared to test their capacity to characterize the kinematics of swimming snakes.(1)Marker tracking(Deftac),(2)Markerless pose estimation(DeepLabCut),and(3)Motion capture were considered.(4)We also designed and tested an automatic video processing *** methods provided different albeit complementary data sets;they also involved different technical issues in terms of experimental conditions,snake manipulation,or processing *** tracking provided accurate data that can be used to calibrate other *** capture posed technical difficulties but can provide limited 3D *** pose estimation required deep learning(thus time)but was efficient to extract the data under various experimental ***,automatic video processing was particularly efficient to extract a wide range of data useful for both biology and robotics but required a specific experimental setting.
Morphological,functional,and behavioral adaptations of bats are among the most diverse within mammals.A strong association between bat skull morphology and feeding behavior has been suggested ***,morphological variati...
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Morphological,functional,and behavioral adaptations of bats are among the most diverse within mammals.A strong association between bat skull morphology and feeding behavior has been suggested ***,morphological variation related to other drivers of adaptation,in particular echolocation,remains *** assessed variation in skull morphology with respect to ecology(diet and emission type)and function(bite force,masticatory muscles and echolocation characteristics)using geometric morphometrics and comparative *** study suggests that variation in skull shape of 10 bat families is the result of adaptations to broad dietary categories and sound emission types(oral or nasal).Skull shape correlates with echolocation parameters only in a subsample of insectivorous species,possibly because they(almost)entirely rely on this sensory system for locating and capturing *** emitting low frequencies are characterized by a ventrally tilted rostrum,a trait not associated with feeding *** result questions the validity of a trade-off between feeding and echolocation *** study advances understanding of the relationship between skull morphology and specific features of echolocation and suggests that evolutionary constraints due to echolocation may differ between different groups within the Chiroptera.
Redonda is a small volcanic Caribbean island that is home to at least 4 endemic lizard species,including the Critically Endangered ground lizard(Pholidoscelis atratus).Black rats(Rattus rattus)and domestic goats(Capra...
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Redonda is a small volcanic Caribbean island that is home to at least 4 endemic lizard species,including the Critically Endangered ground lizard(Pholidoscelis atratus).Black rats(Rattus rattus)and domestic goats(Capra hircus)were introduced to the island at some time after its discovery by Europeans in the late *** had a devastating effect on the island,resulting in the loss of nearly all trees and most of the ground *** count surveys of *** in 2012 indicated low densities,and the invasive rats were observed hunting and preying on the *** populations of rats and goats were successfully removed in 2017 as part of an ecological restoration program,and native vegetation and invertebrate populations have increased rapidly *** surveys in 2017,2018,and 2019 show the lizard population has increased by more than *** 2017,as rats and goats were being removed,we evaluated the morphology and escape behavior of this species and repeated these measurements 1 year *** observed that *** had become bolder,with a reduced flight *** also detected changes in limb morphology related to locomotion and suggest possible explanations that will need to be further investigated in the *** results show how the removal of invasive species can rapidly affect lizard population recovery and behavior,potentially restoring island ecosystems to their pre-human interference dynamics.
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