ANDERSON, B.D.*; FULL, R.J.; GARCIA, M.: A Spring-Mass Model of Centipede Locomotion The laterally undulating Arizona centipede, Scolopendra heros, uses a metachronal gait in which all legs on the concave side of the bent body touch the ground at a single point. Each leg of the wave of legs traveling through this point is not […]

MORENO, C.A.*; TU, M.S.; DANIEL, T.L.: Visual-motor feedback in the tracking behavior of hovering Manduca sexta. Insight into the complex interplay of sensory information, musculoskeletal mechanics, and aerodynamic forces is critical for understanding the fundamental determinants and limits of insect flight performance. While feeding at flowers in the wind, hovering hawkmoths must track a moving […]

Sane, S.P.*; Dickinson, M.H.: Unsteady aerodynamic forces are important for production of force moments by flapping wings. Insects use aerodynamic forces not only to stay in air, but also to steer and maneuver. Through changes in wing kinematics, insects can finely control the pitch, roll and yaw moments around their body and thus maneuver. In […]

COMBES, S.A.*; TRIMBLE, A.C.; DANIEL, T.L.: Spatial profiles of wing stiffness in hawkmoths and dragonflies Insect flight performance depends strongly on the dynamic geometry of wings. The curvature of the trailing edge, in particular, is a crucial determinant of aerodynamic force generation. In insects, wing curvature results from the instantaneous interaction between aerodynamic forces and […]

BIRCH, J.M.*; DICKINSON, M.H.: Dynamic stall of a flapping appendage in the absence of a spiral vortex Recent studies of insect flight describe how dynamic stall and the formation of a leading edge vortex generate large lift forces for insects. This leading edge vortex, along with forces generated through rotation and wake capture, accounts for […]

Usherwood, J. R.: Aerodynamics and energetics of animal flight based on propeller models Recent work on flapping insect models has demonstrated the importance of a spiral ‘leading-edge vortex’ created by dynamic stall and maintained by some aspect of spanwise flow, for creating the lift required during flight (Ellington et al., 1996; Dickinson et al., 1999). […]

MILLER, L.A.: A mathematical model of insect flight: The immersed boundary method with fling Lift generation by insects at low Reynold’s numbers has been a subject of great interest to some biologists, engineers, and mathematicians over the past few decades. Unfortunately, a realistic mathematical model of insect flight, including a flexible wing moving with three […]

Bundle, M.W.*; Dial, K.P.: The metabolic cost of flight in budgies: revisiting an outlier Measuring the metabolic cost of flight has been possible for a little more than thirty years. Since V. A. Tucker’s classic work with budgerigars, fewer than a dozen other species of birds have been flown in wind tunnels in order to […]

Roberts, T.J.*; Scales, J.A.: The Source of Power for Acceleration in Turkeys. Many of the features that make some muscle-tendon units effective as springs during running – long tendons, short muscle fibers, articulations across more than one joint – may make them ill-suited to performing mechanical work. It has been suggested that the work required […]

DIAL, K.P.: On the Origin and Ontogeny of Bird Flight: Developing Wings Assist Vertical Running Discussions on the origin of avian flight fall into two philosophical camps: arboreal (tree-down) or cursorial (ground-up) hypotheses, both of which are dominated by paleontological evidence that fails to adequately address logical incremental adaptive stages necessary to achieve fully developed […]