Effects of body plan evolution on the hydrodynamic drag and energy requirements of swimming in ichthyosaurs.

ABSTRACT: Ichthyosaurs are an extinct group of fully marine tetrapods that were well adapted to aquatic locomotion. During their approximately 160 Myr existence, they evolved from elongate and serpentine forms into stockier, fish-like animals, convergent with sharks and dolphins. Here, we use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to quantify the impact of this transition on the energy demands of ichthyosaur swimming for the first time. We run computational simulations of water flow using three-dimensional digital models of nine ichthyosaurs and an extant functional analogue, a bottlenose dolphin, providing the first quantitative evaluation of ichthyosaur hydrodynamics across phylogeny. Our results show that morphology did not have a major effect on the drag coefficient or the energy cost of steady swim

SUBMITTER: Gutarra S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6458325 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature