It’s a commonly-quoted scientific paradox that bumblebees should be unable to sustain flight, according to the laws of aerodynamics. But Richard Bomphrey, from the RVC’s Structure and Motion lab, is using biomechanics and some seriously high-tech equipment to solve this and other major questions in insect flight – read all about it in a new article…
Author: Anatomy to You
Celebrating the structure of organisms, with snapshots of some of the most fascinating and ground-breaking projects both within and beyond the RVC.
Anatomy To You was founded in December 2015 by Dr Lauren Sumner-Rooney and Professor John R. Hutchinson at the Royal Veterinary College, London.
#wormwednesday: Scale worm jaws reveal cannibalistic habits
Most worms seem pretty harmless – no one ever worries about a nasty bite from an earthworm. But they’re not all so benign. Many species of polychaetes have fearsome jaws that they use to feed on unsuspecting prey – including other worms. These alien-looking gnashers are formed from strengthened collagen and can extend all…
Kangaroo tails act as a ‘fifth limb’, making them one of the only pentapedal animals
Although they’re famous for their bounding jumps, kangaroos are masters of another curious method of locomotion: they walk using five ‘legs’. When moving at slow speeds, kangaroos walk on all fours, but they frequently move their two hind legs in unison, rather than staggered like most other tetrapods do. As they move their hind legs…
‘Solar powered’ sea slug uses captured algae to photosynthesise
Elysia chlorotica not only resembles a leaf, but uses plant-type cells to draw energy from the sun, too! This remarkable seaslug is able to extract chloroplasts from the algae it feeds on and incorporate them into their own tissues. The young slugs feed on algae and digest everything but the photosynthesising organelles, which are stored in the…
Young sea star
Close-up view of a young sea star or starfish, demonstrating two of the key anatomical features of echinoderms, the phylum to which they belong. The first is the pentaradial (five-way radial) symmetry that gives it its characteristic star shape, which is highly unusual. This symmetry means that, unlike most ‘higher’ animals, the sea star has no head or…
X-ray shows the bone structure of a bat’s wings
Bats are the only group of mammals to have achieved powered flight (as opposed to gliding), and represent one of only four known instances of the evolution of true flight, along with insects, birds and pterosaurs. Here, the bone structure of the wings is highlighted in the brown long-eared bat, Plecotus auritus. The majority of support for the…
In Focus: ‘Skin teeth’ stories: using shark denticles to look to their past
Our guest post this week comes from Erin Dillon, a short-term fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. If you would like to contribute a guest post, please get in touch on Twitter or Facebook. What were shark communities like before humans? We know that shark populations have waned significantly over the past several centuries, but we don’t yet…
#wormwednesday: bone-eating ‘zombie’ worm doesn’t need teeth or mouth
Despite sounding like a sci-fi creation, ten species of Osedax worms have been described since their discovery in California’s Monterey Bay in 2002. These curious polychaete worms feed on bones which have sunk to the bottom of the sea – mainly whale fall, but they have also been found in fish and cow remains. The worms live…
Asymmetry in ancient whale skulls aided directional hearing underwater
Modern cetaceans broadly form two distinct groups: baleen whales, which include humpbacks, blue whales and other krill-feeders, and toothed whales such as orcas, dolphins and sperm whales. There are several clear differences in their biology and lifestyles which are reflected in their anatomy. One example of this is that the skulls of toothed whales are…
Barnacle cirri
Barnacles can be found on rocks, sea walls, boat hulls and countless other surfaces in oceans across the world. We usually see them as small, closed mounds resembling beaks, when they are out of the water and closed up to prevent water loss. But when underwater, the barnacle opens up and protrudes many specialised feeding…
In Focus: Vascular ‘safety net’ doesn’t protect the brains of giraffes from dangerous pressure changes
Our guest post this week comes from Haley O’Brien, a PhD student at Ohio University, and Dr. Jason Bourke from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. If you would like to contribute a guest post, please get in touch on Twitter or Facebook. Both giraffes and sauropod dinosaurs are renowned for their signature long necks. As…
Parasitoid wasp Wallaceaphytis kikiae, discovered in Borneo
This minute wasp was discovered in the tropical forests of Malaysian Borneo and measures just 0.75 mm in length (750 µm). Its generic name, Wallaceaphytis, refers to Alfred Russel Wallace, who independently proposed a theory of evolution by natural selection at the same time as Charles Darwin after extensive travel, specimen collection and research in…
Anatomy To You 