Meeting Abstract

P1.98  Sunday, Jan. 4  Quick Forward Escape Swimming in the Stomatopod Crustacean Odontodactylus havanensis CAMPOS, E.O.*; CALDWELL, R.L.; Univ. of California, Berkeley; Univ. of California, Berkeley rhbk44@berkeley.edu

Although metachronal beating of oar-like appendages is a common means of swimming among aquatic organisms, it is typically associated with slow swimming speeds. I characterized the escape swimming of the stomatopod crustacean Odontodactylus havanensis, which uses metachronal rowing to achieve an exceptionally fast escape response. This unique situation may be related to several factors including body size, broad pleopod morphology, and the evolutionary legacy of the formidable stomatopod raptorial appendages. Ten individuals were videotaped at 30 and 500 frames per second while escape swimming. Propulsion was provided by the beating of the first five pairs of abdominal appendages, pleopods, in an adlocomotory metachronal wave. The most posterior pair of pleopods began the power stroke first, and was followed by the power stroke of the next anterior pair of pleopods. This sequential pattern continued until all five pairs of pleopods completed a power stroke. No coasting phase was observed and all five pairs of pleopods began their recovery stroke nearly simultaneously. Escaping stomatopods can approach speeds of 30 body lengths per second, comparable to the escape swimming performances of jetting squid and tail-flipping shrimp-like crustaceans.