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Insects use flight muscles attached at the base of the wings to produce impressive wing flapping frequencies. The maximum power output of these flight muscles is insufficient to maintain such wing oscillations unless there is good elastic…

Birds, bats and many insects can tuck their wings against their bodies at rest and deploy them to power flight. Whereas birds and bats use well-developed pectoral and wing muscles and tendons, how insects control these movements remains…

Saving energy and enhancing performance are secular preoccupations shared by both nature and human beings. In animal locomotion, flapping flyers or swimmers rely on the flexibility of their wings or body to passively increase their…

Compared with fixed-wing flight, flapping flight can generate a higher lift and is also more maneuverable, largely resulting from the benefits of wing rotation. By analyzing the real wing kinematics of fruit flies, we found that the wing…

Stick insect stepping patterns have been studied for insights about locomotor rhythm generation and control, because the underlying neural system is relatively accessible experimentally and produces a variety of rhythmic outputs. Harnessing…

Hummingbirds and insects achieve outstanding flight performance by adapting their flapping motion to the flight requirements. Their wing kinematics can change from smooth flapping to highly dynamic waveforms, generating unsteady aerodynamic…

The physical and bio-mechanical principles that govern undulatory movement on wet surfaces have important applications in physiology, physics, and engineering. The nematode {\it C. elegans}, with its highly stereotypical and functionally…

Medium and large insects in normal hovering have horizontal, planar up- and downstrokes1-4. The lift of the two half-strokes, generated by the leading-edge vortex, provides the weight-supporting vertical force. But for small insects (wing…

Diversity and specialization of behavior in insects is unmatched. Insects hop, walk, run, jump, row, swim, glide and fly to propel themselves in a variety of environments. We have uncovered an unusual mode of propulsion of aerodynamic…

Insects excel in trajectory and attitude handling during flight, yet the specific kinematic behaviours they use for maintaining stability in air disturbances are not fully understood. This study investigates the adaptive strategies of…

Tail bending associated with maneuvering flight of insects is a known phenomenon although there are only a few studies which analyze and quantify the effects and benefits of body configuration changes. We hypothesized that these…

The wings in different insect species are morphologically distinct with regards to their size, outer contour (margin) shape, venation, and pigmentation. The basis of the diversity of wing margin shapes remains unknown, despite the fact that…

In many insect species, the thoracic structure plays a crucial role in enabling flight. In the dipteran indirect flight mechanism, the thorax acts as a transmission link between the flight muscles and the wings, and it is often thought to…

The millimeter-long soil-dwelling nematode {\it C. elegans} propels itself by producing undulations that propagate along its body and turns by assuming highly curved shapes. According to our recent study [PLoS ONE \textbf{7}, e40121 (2012)]…

In biological systems, both skin sensitivity and body flexibility play crucial roles in haptic perception. Fully soft robots often suffer from structural fragility and delayed sensory processing, limiting their practical functionality. The…

Flight is a complicated task at small scales in part due to the ubiquitous unsteady air which contains it. Flying organisms deal with these difficulties using active and passive control mechanisms to steer their body motion. Body attitudes…

Tiny flying insects of body lengths under 2 mm use the `clap-and-fling' mechanism with bristled wings for lift augmentation and drag reduction at chord-based Reynolds number ($Re$) on $\mathcal{O}$(10). We examine wing-wing interaction of…

While engineers put lots of effort, resources, and time in building insect scale micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) that fly like insects, insects themselves are the real masters of flight. What if we would use living insect as platform for MAV…

Birds have a remarkable ability to perform complex maneuvers at post-stall angles of attack. The passive deployment of self-actuating covert feathers in response to unsteady flow separation while performing such maneuvers provides a passive…

Bristled and membranous insect wings have co-evolved despite apparently serving the same functionality. We emulate flight physics using an automated free-fall experiment to better understand how and why several distinct wing forms may have…