Related papers: Size and shape of terrestrial animals
The standard differential scaling of proportions in limb long bones (length against circumference) is applied to a phylogenetically wide sample of the Proboscidea, Elephantidae and the Asian (Elephas maximus) and African elephant (Loxodonta…
We discuss the problem of observation of natural similarity in skeletal evolution of terrestrial mammals. Analysis is given by means of testing of the power scaling laws established in long bone allometry, which describe development of…
A natural similarity in body dimensions of terrestrial animals noticed by ancient philosophers remains the main key to the problem of mammalian skeletal evolution with body mass explored in theoretical and experimental biology and tested by…
Animals locomote for various reasons: to search for food, find suitable habitat, pursue prey, escape from predators, or seek a mate. The grand scale of biodiversity contributes to the great locomotory design and mode diversity. Various…
Production of energy is a foundation of life. Metabolic rate of organisms (amount of energy produced per unit time) generally increases slower than organisms' mass, which has important implications for life organization. This phenomenon,…
Scaling laws illuminate Nature's fundamental biological principles and guide bioinspired materials and structural designs. In simple cases they are based on the fundamental principle that all laws of nature remain unchanged (i.e.,…
Terrestrial locomotion requires generating appropriate ground reaction forces which depend on substrate geometry and physical properties. The richness of positions and orientations of terrain features in the 3-D world gives limbless animals…
Snake robots are inspired by the ability of biological snakes to move over rock, grass, leaves, soil, up trees, along pavement and more. Their ability to move in multiple distinct environments is due to their legless locomotion strategy,…
Scale independence is a ubiquitous feature of complex systems which implies a highly skewed distribution of resources with no characteristic scale. Research has long focused on why systems as varied as protein networks, evolution and stock…
Recent research highlighted the scaling property of human and animal mobility. An interesting issue is that the exponents of scaling law for animals and humans in different situations are quite different. This paper proposes a general…
Locomotion requires that an animal or robot be able to move itself forward farther than it moves backward in each gait cycle (formally, that it be able to break the symmetry of its interactions with the world). Previous work has established…
A central question in developmental biology is how size and position are determined. The genetic code carries instructions on how to control these properties in order to regulate the pattern and morphology of structures in the developing…
One of the greatest challenges of terrestrial locomotion is resisting gravity. The morphological adaptive features of the limb long-bones of extant elephants, the heaviest living terrestrial animals, have previously been highlighted;…
Animal behavior is shaped by a myriad of mechanisms acting on a wide range of scales, which hampers quantitative reasoning and the identification of general principles. Here, we combine data analysis and theory to investigate the…
Scale-free foraging patterns are widespread among animals. These may be the outcome of an optimal searching strategy to find scarce randomly distributed resources, but a less explored alternative is that this behaviour may result from the…
An interesting feature of growth in animals is that different parts of the body grow at approximately the same rate. This property is called proportionate growth. In this paper, we review our recent work on patterns formed by adding $N$…
An important question in biology is how the relative size of different organs is kept nearly constant during growth of an animal. This property, called proportionate growth, has received increased attention in recent years. We discuss our…
Natural selection acts on traits at different scales, often with opposing consequences. This article identifies the particular forces that act at each scale and how those forces combine to determine the overall evolutionary outcome. A…
Measures of biodiversity change such as the Living Planet Index describe proportional change in the abundance of a typical species, which can be thought of as change in the size of a community. Here, I discuss the orthogonal concept of…
Small-scale structures on biological surfaces can profoundly impact how animals move, appear, and interact with their environments. Such textures may be especially important for limbless reptiles, such as snakes and legless lizards, because…