TY  - JOUR
A1  - Baumgartner, Werner
A1  - Fidler, Florian
A1  - Weth, Agnes
A1  - Habbecke, Martin
A1  - Jakob, Peter
A1  - Butenweg, Christoph
A1  - Böhme, Wolfgang
T1  - Investigating the locomotion of the sandfish in desert sand using NMR-Imaging
JF  - PLOS ONE
N2  - The sandfish (Scincus scincus) is a lizard having the remarkable ability to move through desert sand for significant distances. It is well adapted to living in loose sand by virtue of a combination of morphological and behavioural specializations. We investigated the bodyform of the sandfish using 3D-laserscanning and explored its locomotion in loose desert sand using fast nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging. The sandfish exhibits an in-plane meandering motion with a frequency of about 3 Hz and an amplitude of about half its body length accompanied by swimming-like (or trotting) movements of its limbs. No torsion of the body was observed, a movement required for a digging-behaviour. Simple calculations based on the Janssen model for granular material related to our findings on bodyform and locomotor behaviour render a local decompaction of the sand surrounding the moving sandfish very likely. Thus the sand locally behaves as a viscous fluid and not as a solid material. In this fluidised sand the sandfish is able to “swim” using its limbs.
KW  - magnetic resonance imaging
KW  - body limbs
KW  - swimming
KW  - lizards
KW  - deserts
Y1  - 2008
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0003309
SN  - 1932-6203
VL  - 3
IS  - 10
PB  - Plos
CY  - San Francisco, California, US
ER  -