More than half of a rattlesnake’s body may be involved in striking behaviour, particularly where the strike is defensive, and the anterior third of body length is usually active when hunting. The remainder of the body ‘anchors’ the snake to a solid base position. Tracking the kinematics of a single strike reveals that different segments of…
Tag: bones
Photographer captures turtle skeleton and discovers a clutch of eggs
Ted Kinsman, professor of photographic sciences at the Rochester Institute of Technology, found this unfortunate expired snapping turtle at the roadside and made it the subject of his next project. What he didn’t expect was to discover a clutch of eggs within, revealed by X-ray. Turtles may have carry up to 30 fertilised eggs from…
Sections through tough wombat femur show possible adaptation to digging.
Wombats are marsupial mammals that are only found in Australia. They are fossorial and dig out extensive networks of burrows. Wombats have a variety of adaptations to this lifestyle, which is energetically demanding and unusual in marsupials, including a unique backwards-facing pouch to prevent young being smothered with dirt while digging. This lovely section, which represents a…
Glyptodonts may have evolved neck protection in response to new sabre-toothed predators
Glyptodonts are an extinct group of large mammals which were reasonably common across South (and later, Central) America during the Pleistocene era. These large herbivores resembled ankylosaurs and armadillos, to the latter of which they are close relatives. They could be the size of a small car, with short legs and a fairly squat posture….
Section through a mouse vertebra
Section through the centre of a mouse vertebra, image courtesy of Michael Paul Nelson and Samantha Smith from the Nikon Small World competition.
Stunning X-ray still life images show skeletal adaptations in life poses
Seeing the skeleton in action can give viewers a very different perspective on adaptation and evolution, and most museums endeavour to pose their exhibits in real life position. This can be tricky, reassembling the bones and trying to give a realistic impression of total body shape and size beyond the skeleton itself. These images, from…
#fossilfriday: Early sketch of a plesiosaur by discoverer Mary Anning
This drawing shows one of the first plesiosaur (long-necked marine reptile) skeletons found by Mary Anning in the winter of 1823-4. Anning, an English woman living on the south coast in Dorset, was one of the most important fossil collectors in scientific history and, with her family, discovered the remains of many new species, including…
Spine flexibility helps cheetahs reach top speeds
Cheetahs are the ultimate sprinters among large land animals, reaching bursts of up to about 110 kph (~68mph) and unbeaten as the fastest living runner on the planet. This beautifully re-articulated skeleton reveals some of the ways they are able to reach such superhuman speeds. The sigmoidal curve of the spine visible in this image allows the front and…
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…
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…
#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…
Anatomy To You 