Locomotion

This book is about how animals travel around on land, in water and in the air. It is mainly about mechanisms of locomotion, their limitations and their energy requirements. There is some information about muscle physiology in Chapter 1, but only as much as seems necessary for the discussions of mechanisms and energetics.

Primate locomotion has typically been studied from two points of view. Laboratory-based researchers have focused on aspects like biomechanics and energetics, whereas field-based researchers have focused on (locomotor) behaviour and ecology. Primate Locomotion: Linking Field and Laboratory Research brings together both aspects of primate locomotion studies.

Locomotion is a steamy railway puzzler. An alien stole your gold, and you’ve got to chase them into space to get it back. Haul wagons, flick switches, and reclaim your lost gold, through fifty-one increasingly tricky levels from home on the range to the final frontier.

The physical principles of swimming and flying in animals are intriguingly different from those of ships and airplanes. The study of animal locomotion therefore holds a special place not only at the frontiers of pure fluid dynamics research, but also in the applied field of biomimetics, which aims to emulate salient aspects of the performance and function of living organisms.