Swimmers in nature use body undulations to generate propulsive and manoeuvring forces. The anguilliform kinematics is driven by muscular actions all along the body, involving a complex temporal and spatial coordination of all the local actuations. Such swimming kinematics can be reproduced artificially, in a simpler way, by using the elasticity of the body passively. Here, we present experiment...

The Atlantic needlefish (Strongylura marina) is a unique anguilliform swimmer in that it possesses prominent fins, lives in coastal surface-waters, and can propel itself across the surface of the water to escape predators. In a laboratory flow tank, steadily swimming needlefish perform a speed-dependent suite of behaviors while maintaining at least a half wavelength of undulation on the body at...

the head bones and relevant muscles are important elements composing the feeding and respiration apparatus and can be considered as highly important structures for giving rise to evolutionary specializations. the eels of the anguilloidei is a diverse group and structural diversity in their cranial musculoskeletal system is thus to be expected. ariosoma gilberti is a member of bathymyrinae (cong...

Eel-like fish can exhibit efficient swimming with comparatively low metabolic cost by utilizing sub-ambient pressure areas in the trough of body waves to generate thrust, effectively pulling themselves through surrounding water. While this is understood at fish’s preferred speed, little known about mechanism over a full range natural speeds. We compared kinematics, hydrodynamics, and activity j...

Studies of center of mass (COM) motion are fundamental to understanding the dynamics of animal movement, and have been carried out extensively for terrestrial and aerial locomotion. But despite a large amount of literature describing different body movement patterns in fishes, analyses of how the center of mass moves during undulatory propulsion are not available. These data would be valuable f...

Fish swimming is probably one of the most studied and best understood locomotor behaviors in vertebrates. However, many fish also actively exploit sediments. Because of their elongate body shape, anguilliform fishes are not only efficient swimmers but also very maneuverable. Consequently, many species live in complexly structured environments near the bottom and many are known to burrow into th...