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Article Reference Design of flying robots inspired by the evolution of avian flight
Bionic design of flying robots based on natural models has become a hot topic in mechanical engineering. The research going on in this direction considers that there is a lot to learn from flying animals such as birds, insects, and bats, from walking on the ground to getting enough power to be airborne. To get an efficient design of flying robots, we must better understand the origin of flight. This paper focuses on the review of avian flight and its possible application in the design of flying robots. Different hypotheses have been proposed to tackle the origin and evolution of avian flight from cursorial dinosaurs to modern birds, including the famous ground-up and tree-down theories. During the past decade, discoveries of feathered and winged dinosaurs from Liaoning, China, strongly supported the theory that birds originated from theropod dinosaurs. The transition from running on the ground to maneuver in the sky involves various stages of flights and plumages, which can be now illustrated by several representative paravian dinosaurs from Liaoning. Those fossils provide good research bases for the design of flying robots. Microraptor is one of those important transitional stages in the evolution of flight. This paravian dinosaur is characterized by the presence of pennaceous feathers along both its arms and its legs, but how it could actually fly is still debated. It is of course difficult to evaluate the flight performances of an extinct animal, but aerodynamics of a four-wing robot can be developed to get some knowledge about its flying capacity. Fossil and living flying animals with different morphologies, stability, and control mechanism can be a source of inspiration for designing socially relevant products.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2019
Article Reference Shaking the wings and preening feathers with the beak help a bird to recover its ruffled feather vane
The feather of a bird consists of barbs which again comprise numerous barbules with micro-hooklets. This hierarchically organized feather structure provides a smooth vane to bear the load from the airflow; however, the feather vane is vulnerable to disruption by external pulling forces during collision with the branches of a tree and hitting some small obstacles in flight or strong turbulence. The feather is unable to carry the weight of the bird's body if the vane could not be recovered immediately. Here we discovered that the feather vane can be re-established easily by birds themselves. A bird can always recover its feather vane from ruffled state by shaking its wings and preening its feathers with its beak because of the cascaded geometries of barbs and barbules. This biophysical mechanism of self-healing suggests that the hierarchical vane structure can be used to design artificial feathers for a flapping robot.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2019
Article Reference The oldest freshwater crabs: claws on dinosaur bones
With approximately 1,500 extant species, freshwater crabs (Decapoda: Brachyura) are among the most diverse decapod crustaceans. nevertheless, their fossil record is extremely limited: only potamidae, potamonautidae and trichodactylidae are reported up to the eocene of the neotropics so far. this work documents unusually large decapod claws from the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) continental deposits of Velaux and vicinity (southern France), in close association with large vertebrate remains. In addition to (1) the systematic assignment of these claws, the study addresses (2) the salinity trends in the deposit environment from its faunal assemblage and the elementary chemical patterns of fossils, and (3) the likely scenario for their auto/allochthony in the Velaux fuvial system. These claws belong to a new taxon, Dinocarcinus velauciensis n. gen. n. sp., referred to as Portunoidea sensu lato, a group of “true” crabs nowadays linked to marine systems. However, the faunal assemblage, the claw taphonomy and the carbonates Y/Ho signatures support their ancient freshwater/terrestrial ecology, making them the oldest reported continental brachyurans and extending the presence of crabs in freshwater environments by 40 Ma. Either as primary or as secondary freshwater crabs, the occurrence of these portunoids in Velaux is an evidence for the independent colonizations of continental environments by multiple brachyuran clades over time, as early as the campanian.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2019
Article Reference The pan-and-tilt hyperspectral radiometer system (PANTHYR) for autonomous satellite validation measurements – prototype design and testing
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2019
Article Reference Pterosaur melanosomes support signalling functions for early feathers
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference Radial porosity profiles: a new bone histological method for comparative developmental analysis of diametric limb bone growth
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference Endocranial morphology of Liaoceratops yanzigouensis (Dinosauria: Ceratopsia) from Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota of Liaoning in China
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference Is vertebral shape variability in caecilians (Amphibia: Gymnophiona) constrained by forces experienced during burrowing?
Caecilians are predominantly burrowing, elongate, limbless amphibians that have been relatively poorly studied. Although it has been suggested that the sturdy and compact skulls of caecilians are an adaptation to their head-first burrowing habits, no clear relationship between skull shape and burrowing performance appears to exist. However, the external forces encountered during burrowing are transmitted by the skull to the vertebral column, and, as such, may impact vertebral shape. Additionally, the muscles that generate the burrowing forces attach onto the vertebral column and consequently may impact vertebral shape that way as well. Here, we explored the relationships between vertebral shape and maximal in vivo push forces in 13 species of caecilian amphibians. Our results show that the shape of the two most anterior vertebrae, as well as the shape of the vertebrae at 90% of the total body length, is not correlated with peak push forces. Conversely, the shape of the third vertebrae, and the vertebrae at 20% and 60% of the total body length, does show a relationship to push forces measured in vivo. Whether these relationships are indirect (external forces constraining shape variation) or direct (muscle forces constraining shape variation) remains unclear and will require quantitative studies of the axial musculature. Importantly, our data suggest that mid-body vertebrae may potentially be used as proxies to infer burrowing capacity in fossil representatives.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference Generalized osteosclerotic condition in the skeleton of Nanophoca vitulinoides, a dwarf seal from the Miocene of Belgium
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2018
Article Reference The common morphospecies Cypridopsis vidua (O.F. MÜLLER, 1776) (Crustacea, Ostracoda) is not an obligate parthenogen
The common non-marine ostracod Cypridopsis vidua (O.F. Müller, 1776) is used as a proxy in various biological disciplines, such as (palaeo-)ecology, evolutionary biology, ecotoxicology and parasitology. This morphospecies was considered to be an obligate parthenogen. We report on the discovery of the first population of C. vidua with males from Woods Hole (MA, USA) and determine that it is a population with mixed reproduction. We describe the morphology of the males and of the sexual and asexual females. We illustrate a copula of a male and a sexual female as well insemination in a sexual female, showing that males are functional. Therefore, Cypridopsis vidua is a morphospecies with mixed reproduction, not a full apomictic parthenogen. We use, for the first time, polychromatic polarization microscope technology to illustrate soft parts of ostracods. In addition, we compare the sexual species C. bisexualis, C. okeechobei, C. howei and C. schwartzi and conclude that these species, especially the latter three, are morphologically very close to C. vidua.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2023