Comparative kinematics
in walking & swimming fishes

Walking first evolved in fishes long before the transition from water to land, approximately 375 million years ago. This ancient form of locomotion has been retained in extant fishes and is observed in many swimming species, suggesting that these complementary gaits offer selective advantages. Yet, these fishes can be phylogenetically distant (e.g., elasmobranchs, gobiiformes) and exhibit various ecologies (e.g., aquatic, terrestrial) and morphologies (e.g., fin location along the body), making it difficult to compare their locomotion movements.
Yet, kinematic measurements provide a valuable tool for accurately describing the movements of objects with equivalent anatomical landmarks, such as the snout and tip of the tail. We can establish a framework for detailed locomotion analysis at the interspecific level using kinematics.
This work compares inter- and intraspecific mechanics beyond walking and swimming in fishes.

Method: Kinematics

Good to know: This work is funded by the Human Frontier Science Program grant attributed to Valentina Di Santo. Main people involved in this project are Michael Ishida, Fumiya Iida, Neil Shubin, and Neelima Sharma.

Conference poster:

F. Berio, C. Morerod, P. Schmitz & V. Di Santo (2023). How and why fishes walk: A biomechanics perspective. — Society for Experimental Biology.