A novel cylindrical overlap-and-fling mechanism used by sea butterflies [RESEARCH ARTICLE]

Ferhat Karakas, Amy E. Maas, and David W. Murphy
The clap-and-fling mechanism is a well-studied, unsteady lift generation mechanism widely used by flying insects and is considered obligatory for tiny insects flying at low to intermediate Reynolds numbers, Re. However, some aquatic zooplankters including some pteropod (i.e. sea butterfly) and heteropod species swimming at low to intermediate Re also use the clap-and-fling mechanism. These marine snails have extremely flexible, actively deformed, muscular wings which they flap reciprocally to create propulsive force, and these wings may enable novel lift generation mechanisms not available to insects, which have less flexible, passively deformed wings. Using high-speed stereophotogrammetry and micro-particle image velocimetry, we describe a novel cylindrical overlap-and-fling mechanism used by the pteropod species Cuvierina atlantica. In this maneuver, the pteropod's wingtips overlap at the end of each half-stroke to sequentially form a downward-opening cone, a cylinder and an upward-opening cone. The transition from downward-opening cone to cylinder produces a downward-directed jet at the trailing edges. Similarly, the transition from cylinder to upward-opening cone produces downward flow into the gap between the wings, a leading edge vortex ring and a corresponding sharp increase in swimming speed. The ability of this pteropod species to perform the cylindrical overlap-and-fling maneuver twice during each stroke is enabled b...

Source: Journal of Experimental Biology - August 12, 2020 Category: Biology Authors: Karakas, F., Maas, A. E., Murphy, D. W. Tags: RESEARCH ARTICLE Source Type: research