User:Sjf

From Animal Simulation Laboratory Wiki

Simon Furnell

Simon is studying for a PhD at the University of Manchester on a Leverhulme Trust funded project entitled "Pads v. Claws in Arboreal Locomotion: Mechanics of Predator-Prey Relationships"

In outline his project is as follows:

Living primates show a huge range of diversity in relation to locomotor patterns, and many species are highly adapted for an arboreal lifestyle. The Malagasy strepsirhines are known for their saltatory displays and much research has been devoted to leaping specifically. Discovering the emergence of strepsirhine leaping is very difficult due to the poor primate fossil record and lack of post-cranial fossils available. It is thought, from limited evidence that the adapids of the Eocene are ancestors to extant lemurs and that vertical clinging and leaping may have emerged in the early Eocene with a genus called Carpolestes. Although, these links with fossil skeletons are highly debated subjects and often only linked to tiny cranial fragments of a fossil. On the island of Madagascar there is a diverse range of locomotor repertoires throughout the strepsirhine species present, with arboreal quadrupeds, generalists, specialist leapers and one species (Lemur catta) is mainly terrestrial. Accelerometers will be used to record movement patterns continuously, without the need of observation. This will allow for a bouting study to show activity rhythms and locomotor preferences in lemur species. Also a basic ballistics model following the course of a projectile shows the need for a study looking at take-off angles, which will clarify the notion that a 45° take-off angle is the optimum.