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Los Movimientos Animales
Los Movimientos Animales
Los Movimientos Animales
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Recent advances in integrative studies of locomotion have revealed sev- through Newton’s laws, accelerates in the
eral general principles. Energy storage and exchange mechanisms discov- opposite direction. Yet, studies of walking,
ered in walking and running bipeds apply to multilegged locomotion and running, swimming, and flying indicate that
even to flying and swimming. Nonpropulsive lateral forces can be sizable, the spatial and temporal dynamics of force
but they may benefit stability, maneuverability, or other criteria that application are not as simple as they might
become apparent in natural environments. Locomotor control systems first appear. From whale sperm to sperm
combine rapid mechanical preflexes with multimodal sensory feedback whales, locomotion is almost always pro-
and feedforward commands. Muscles have a surprising variety of functions duced by appendages that oscillate or by
in locomotion, serving as motors, brakes, springs, and struts. Integrative bodies that undulate, pulse, or undergo peri-
approaches reveal not only how each component within a locomotor staltic waves. As a consequence, although an
system operates but how they function as a collective whole. animal may appear to move forward at a
steady speed, the forces it exerts on the en-
Locomotion, movement through the environ- Frequently, model organisms are chosen be- vironment are anything but constant.
ment, is the behavior that most dictates the cause they perform some function exception- As a general illustration of the complexi-
REFERENCES This article cites 103 articles, 37 of which you can access for free
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/288/5463/100#BIBL
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