Dr. Tonia Hsieh from the University of Florida made a video appearance in my vertebrate biology course to discuss her 2004 paper on the biomechanics of running on water. Dr. Hsieh’s research attempts to understand how animals move by integrating engineering and physics with biology. She also considers the evolutionary history of her organisms to better understand how different types of locomotion have evolved. She spoke with us about a particularly cool example of movement – lizards running on water. Those are of course basilisks, or jesus lizards. My students had the chance to discuss the paper with Dr. Hsieh and hear some added background about how the research was done.
Dr. Hsieh and her collaborator George Lauder discovered that these lizards use a unique motion of their legs – they move them laterally through the water to keep their bodies from falling to the side, and then move them medially to keep them from toppling towards their opposite leg. At the same time they are producing forces that propel them forward.
We spoke together using Skype video - a great inexpensive (free) way to video conference.
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