Meeting Abstract

P1.114  Tuesday, Jan. 4  Very bendable bodies: a kinematic analysis of hagfish swimming LIM, J.L.*; WINEGARD, T.M.; Harvard University; University of Guelph jlim@oeb.harvard.edu

While the notorious sliming habits of hagfish have been well-studied, their swimming behaviour has yet to receive the same amount of attention. Our goal is to provide a detailed quantitative analysis of hagfish whole-body swimming kinematics for (1) further use in developing mechanistic models of undulatory swimming in flexible-bodied fish, and (2) comparison with other anguilliform swimmers. We used high-speed video to film ventral and lateral views of Pacific hagfish (Eptatretus stoutii) and Atlantic hagfish (Myxine glutinosa) steadily swimming at a range of speeds (~0.5 – 1.25 BL/s) in a flow tank. Image analysis provided body position data that we used to generate midline drawings and propulsive wave characteristics that describe hagfish swimming behaviour. Both species appear to swim with a generally anguilliform pattern, but with large side-to-side motions of the head that generate a propulsive wave that travels down the body; this contrasts in particular with lower amplitude undulations seen in swimming eels (Anguilla spp.) after which anguilliform swimming was named. As hagfish lack vertebrae and paired fins, and have relatively simple nervous control of movement, their swimming seems particularly amenable to modelling with basic beam and mechanical wave theory. Results from this kinematic analysis will be used to formulate hypotheses on functional relationships between body morphology, body mechanical properties, and swimming kinematics and hydrodynamics in hagfish and other anguilliform swimmers.