New study reveals the key to locomotion in snails

Washington, Mar 8 (ANI): A new study has found evidence that suggests that the key to locomotion in snails stems from the animal's complex muscle movements, and not from its mucus, as had been previously thought.

This Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) finding could open the door to the construction of robots, which could imitate this form of propulsion.

The main aim of this study, carried out in collaboration with the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) and Stanford University is to characterize some aspects of gastropod (snails and slugs) locomotion to basically respond to one question: To what extent do they depend on the physical properties of their mucus to propel themselves forward?

"The aim is for the robot to be able to propel itself in any fluid mucus without having to carry its own reserve of mucus along," explained one of the authors of the research study, Javier Rodriguez, of the UC3M Department of Thermal and Fluids Engineering.

"Bear in mind, that snail mucus has a very particular behaviour because it is a specific type of fluid with complex physical characteristics called non-Newtonian fluid," said Rodriguez.

Until now, it was known that snails and slugs move by propagating their body in a series of muscular wave motions to advance from their tail to their head, but the importance of their mucus in this process was not known.

The conclusion obtained by these scientists is that this fluid's properties are not essential for propulsion.

"Without a doubt, it could have other uses, such as climbing walls, moving upside down, or preserving moisture in the body when on a dry surface, but if we want to construct a robot that emulates a snail, the latter could move over fluid mucus with ordinary properties" pointed Rodr¡guez.

To carry out this study, the researchers have characterized the propagation of these muscular waves that occur along the body of gastropods. For this purpose, they place the snails and slugs so that they move on transparent surfaces, illuminating their undersides in different ways so as to record images through digital cameras, subsequently analyzing this data by computer.

The findings have been published in the Journal of Experimental Biology. (ANI)