ArticleJournal of the Royal Society, Interface2011
Mechanical models of sandfish locomotion reveal principles of high performance subsurface sand-swimming.
Article in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers.
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Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed, 188 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Optimizing energetics of lateral undulatory locomotion: unveiling morphological adaptations in different environments.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Animal-Morphing Bio-Inspired Mechatronic Systems: Research Framework in Robot Design to Enhance Interplanetary Exploration on the Moon.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Are toe fringes important for lizard burying in highly mobile sand?Frontiers in zoology · 2024Article
- Geometric phase predicts locomotion performance in undulating living systems across scales.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Simulation and Structural Analysis of a Flexible Coupling Bionic Desorption Mechanism Based on the Engineering Discrete Element Method.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Self-propulsion via slipping: Frictional swimming in multilegged locomotors.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Mechanistic framework for reduced-order models in soft materials: Application to three-dimensional granular intrusion.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Radial Expansion Favors the Burrowing Behavior ofApplied bionics and biomechanics · 2023Article
- Maneuvering on non-Newtonian fluidic terrain: a survey of animal and bio-inspired robot locomotion techniques on soft yielding grounds.Frontiers in robotics and AI · 2023Review
- Fundamentals of burrowing in soft animals and robots.Frontiers in robotics and AI · 2023Review
- Pivot burrowing of scarab beetle (Trypoxylus dichotomus) larva.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Morphological study of the integument and corporal skeletal muscles of two psammophilous members of Scincidae (Scincus scincus and Eumeces schneideri).Journal of morphology · 2021Article
- Article
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- Helically-driven granular mobility and gravity-variant scaling relations.RSC advances · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
We integrate biological experiment, empirical theory, numerical simulation and a physical model to reveal principles of undulatory locomotion in granular media. High-speed X-ray imaging of the sandfish lizard, Scincus scincus, in 3 mm glass particles shows that it swims within the medium without using its limbs by propagating a single-period travelling sinusoidal wave down its body, resulting in a wave efficiency, η, the ratio of its average forward speed to the wave speed, of approximately 0.5. A resistive force theory (RFT) that balances granular thrust and drag forces along the body predicts η close to the observed value. We test this prediction against two other more detailed modelling approaches: a numerical model of the sandfish coupled to a discrete particle simulation of the granular medium, and an undulatory robot that swims within granular media. Using these models and analytical solutions of the RFT, we vary the ratio of undulation amplitude to wavelength (A/λ) and demonstrate an optimal condition for sand-swimming, which for a given A results from the competition between η and λ. The RFT, in agreement with the simulated and physical models, predicts that for a single-period sinusoidal wave, maximal speed occurs for A/λ ≈ 0.2, the same kinematics used by the sandfish.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.