Large size in aquatic tetrapods compensates for high drag caused by extreme body proportions.

ABSTRACT: Various Mesozoic marine reptile lineages evolved streamlined bodies and efficient lift-based swimming, as seen in modern aquatic mammals. Ichthyosaurs had low-drag bodies, akin to modern dolphins, but plesiosaurs were strikingly different, with long hydrofoil-like limbs and greatly variable neck and trunk proportions. Using computational fluid dynamics, we explore the effect of this extreme morphological variation. We find that, independently of their body fineness ratio, plesiosaurs produced more drag than ichthyosaurs and modern cetaceans of equal mass due to their large limbs, but these differences were not significant when body size was accounted for. Additionally, necks longer than twice the trunk length can substantially increase the cost of forward swimming, but this effect was canc

SUBMITTER: Gutarra S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9051157 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature