Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Functional patterns of swimming bacteria
- 2 Buoyancy and swimming in marine planktonic protists
- 3 The role of fins in the competition between squid and fish
- 4 The biology of fish swimming
- 5 Swimming physiology of pelagic fishes
- 6 The mechanical design of the fish muscular system
- 7 How do fish use their myotomal muscle to swim? In vitro simulations of in vivo activity patterns
- 8 The timing of lateral muscle strain and EMG activity in different species of steadily swimming fish
- 9 Swimming in the lamprey: modelling the neural pattern generation, the body dynamics and the fluid mechanics
- 10 Swimming capabilities of Mesozoic marine reptiles: a review
- 11 Stone, bone or blubber? Buoyancy control strategies in aquatic tetrapods
- 12 Functional anatomy of the ‘flight’ apparatus in penguins
- 13 Energy conservation by formation swimming: metabolic evidence from ducklings
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - The role of fins in the competition between squid and fish
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Functional patterns of swimming bacteria
- 2 Buoyancy and swimming in marine planktonic protists
- 3 The role of fins in the competition between squid and fish
- 4 The biology of fish swimming
- 5 Swimming physiology of pelagic fishes
- 6 The mechanical design of the fish muscular system
- 7 How do fish use their myotomal muscle to swim? In vitro simulations of in vivo activity patterns
- 8 The timing of lateral muscle strain and EMG activity in different species of steadily swimming fish
- 9 Swimming in the lamprey: modelling the neural pattern generation, the body dynamics and the fluid mechanics
- 10 Swimming capabilities of Mesozoic marine reptiles: a review
- 11 Stone, bone or blubber? Buoyancy control strategies in aquatic tetrapods
- 12 Functional anatomy of the ‘flight’ apparatus in penguins
- 13 Energy conservation by formation swimming: metabolic evidence from ducklings
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In recent decades cephalopod locomotion studies have focused on jet propulsion, largely ignoring the lateral fins used by almost all squid during swimming. There are many types of fins, such as large rhomboidal fins, smaller triangular fins and long marginal fins. Not only does fin shape vary between squid species, but also fin usage varies, often with the lifestyle of the squid. The shape of the fins also changes during ontogenetic growth, and nearly all hatchling squid have fins proportionally smaller than those of adults. This change in relative size may also reflect a change in the use of the fins similar to the different usages of the variously shaped adult fins. Understanding the significance of fin design will improve our ability to predict the lifestyles of rarely seen squids. Since fins are used in synchrony with the jet, there is the potential for both synergistic and antagonistic modes of use. Knowledge of the relative importance of fin thrust in squid swimming is also essential for interpreting the new data on jet pressures available from field tracking studies.
INTRODUCTION
For hundreds of millions of years cephalopods roamed the world's oceans as jet-propelled masters of the pelagic world, until fishes, using highly efficient undulatory locomotion, ousted them from many preferred nektonic niches. These two groups have been the focus of comparative reviews (Packard, 1966, 1972; O'Dor & Webber, 1986) which integrate the lifestyles of cephalopods with their ecology, anatomy, physiology and locomotion.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Mechanics and Physiology of Animal Swimming , pp. 27 - 44Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994
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