| Autor: |
Werner Baumgartner, Florian Fidler, Agnes Weth, Martin Habbecke, Peter Jakob, Christoph Butenweg, Wolfgang Böhme |
| Jazyk: |
angličtina |
| Rok vydání: |
2008 |
| Předmět: |
|
| Zdroj: |
PLoS ONE, Vol 3, Iss 10, p e3309 (2008) |
| Druh dokumentu: |
article |
| ISSN: |
1932-6203 |
| DOI: |
10.1371/journal.pone.0003309 |
| Popis: |
The sandfish (Scincus scincus) is a lizard having the remarkable ability to move through desert sand for significant distances. It is well adapted to living in loose sand by virtue of a combination of morphological and behavioural specializations. We investigated the bodyform of the sandfish using 3D-laserscanning and explored its locomotion in loose desert sand using fast nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging. The sandfish exhibits an in-plane meandering motion with a frequency of about 3 Hz and an amplitude of about half its body length accompanied by swimming-like (or trotting) movements of its limbs. No torsion of the body was observed, a movement required for a digging-behaviour. Simple calculations based on the Janssen model for granular material related to our findings on bodyform and locomotor behaviour render a local decompaction of the sand surrounding the moving sandfish very likely. Thus the sand locally behaves as a viscous fluid and not as a solid material. In this fluidised sand the sandfish is able to "swim" using its limbs. |
| Databáze: |
Directory of Open Access Journals |
| Externí odkaz: |
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