Morphological peculiarities of a harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) whisker revealed by normal skeletonisation
Of all mammalian vibrissae, those of certain species of pinnipeds are exceptional. Researchers believe that their curious undulating form evolved for hydrodynamic detection. Our understanding of how these whiskers work depends on a geometrical model that captures the crucial pertinent features of th...
Published in: | Bioinspiration & Biomimetics |
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2022
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ftlondsouthbanku:oai:openresearch.lsbu.ac.uk:8z566 2023-05-15T16:33:34+02:00 Morphological peculiarities of a harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) whisker revealed by normal skeletonisation Goss, G. Starostin, E. Dougill, G. Grant, R.A. 2022 https://openresearch.lsbu.ac.uk/item/8z566 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-3190/ac5a6b unknown IOP Publishing https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-3190/ac5a6b Goss, G., Starostin, E., Dougill, G. and Grant, R.A. (2022). Morphological peculiarities of a harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) whisker revealed by normal skeletonisation. Bioinspiration & biomimetics. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-3190/ac5a6b CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 CC-BY-NC-ND Harbour seal whisker vibrissa normal skeleton elastic rod journal-article PeerReviewed 2022 ftlondsouthbanku https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-3190/ac5a6b 2023-03-02T23:29:45Z Of all mammalian vibrissae, those of certain species of pinnipeds are exceptional. Researchers believe that their curious undulating form evolved for hydrodynamic detection. Our understanding of how these whiskers work depends on a geometrical model that captures the crucial pertinent features of the natural vibrissae including its tapering and curvature. It should also account for the form of the whisker when it flexes under external loading. We introduce and study a normal skeleton of a two-dimensional projection of a harbour seal whisker. The normal skeleton is a complete shape descriptor that involves reduction to the centreline equipped with a thickness function of the orthogonal cross-section. The contours of the whisker shape are extracted from a 2D greyscale scan. Our analysis reveals correspondence between the undulations of the width and oscillations of the centreline curvature as functions of arc length. We discuss two possible explanations for that remarkable feature: one based on consideration of growth and the other of plastic deformation. For the latter we employ a mechanical model to demonstrate appearance of curvature oscillations caused by extensive deflection of the undulating whisker due to external loading. Text harbour seal Phoca vitulina LSBU Research Open (London South Bank University) Bioinspiration & Biomimetics 17 3 034001 |
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Open Polar |
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LSBU Research Open (London South Bank University) |
op_collection_id |
ftlondsouthbanku |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Harbour seal whisker vibrissa normal skeleton elastic rod |
spellingShingle |
Harbour seal whisker vibrissa normal skeleton elastic rod Goss, G. Starostin, E. Dougill, G. Grant, R.A. Morphological peculiarities of a harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) whisker revealed by normal skeletonisation |
topic_facet |
Harbour seal whisker vibrissa normal skeleton elastic rod |
description |
Of all mammalian vibrissae, those of certain species of pinnipeds are exceptional. Researchers believe that their curious undulating form evolved for hydrodynamic detection. Our understanding of how these whiskers work depends on a geometrical model that captures the crucial pertinent features of the natural vibrissae including its tapering and curvature. It should also account for the form of the whisker when it flexes under external loading. We introduce and study a normal skeleton of a two-dimensional projection of a harbour seal whisker. The normal skeleton is a complete shape descriptor that involves reduction to the centreline equipped with a thickness function of the orthogonal cross-section. The contours of the whisker shape are extracted from a 2D greyscale scan. Our analysis reveals correspondence between the undulations of the width and oscillations of the centreline curvature as functions of arc length. We discuss two possible explanations for that remarkable feature: one based on consideration of growth and the other of plastic deformation. For the latter we employ a mechanical model to demonstrate appearance of curvature oscillations caused by extensive deflection of the undulating whisker due to external loading. |
format |
Text |
author |
Goss, G. Starostin, E. Dougill, G. Grant, R.A. |
author_facet |
Goss, G. Starostin, E. Dougill, G. Grant, R.A. |
author_sort |
Goss, G. |
title |
Morphological peculiarities of a harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) whisker revealed by normal skeletonisation |
title_short |
Morphological peculiarities of a harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) whisker revealed by normal skeletonisation |
title_full |
Morphological peculiarities of a harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) whisker revealed by normal skeletonisation |
title_fullStr |
Morphological peculiarities of a harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) whisker revealed by normal skeletonisation |
title_full_unstemmed |
Morphological peculiarities of a harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) whisker revealed by normal skeletonisation |
title_sort |
morphological peculiarities of a harbour seal (phoca vitulina) whisker revealed by normal skeletonisation |
publisher |
IOP Publishing |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://openresearch.lsbu.ac.uk/item/8z566 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-3190/ac5a6b |
genre |
harbour seal Phoca vitulina |
genre_facet |
harbour seal Phoca vitulina |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-3190/ac5a6b Goss, G., Starostin, E., Dougill, G. and Grant, R.A. (2022). Morphological peculiarities of a harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) whisker revealed by normal skeletonisation. Bioinspiration & biomimetics. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-3190/ac5a6b |
op_rights |
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-3190/ac5a6b |
container_title |
Bioinspiration & Biomimetics |
container_volume |
17 |
container_issue |
3 |
container_start_page |
034001 |
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1766023253923463168 |