Omnidirectional propulsion in a metachronal swimmer
Fig 9
Motor volume (MV) constructed from the 27 tracked swimming trajectories of B. vitrea.
Black lines show swimming trajectories (midpoint between tentacular bulbs) and volume swept by animals’ bodies (gray cloud) during each maneuver. Animal volume is estimated as a prolate spheroid based on morphological measurements (Table 2). The yellow sketches indicate the initial position of the ctenophore; the motor volume is elongated in X because all trajectories were considered from the same starting orientation, and because our dataset contains only animals with a nonzero initial velocity (since animals freely swam through the field of view). (A) Side view and (B) front view of the tracked swimming trajectories and motor volume show that B. vitrea can turn over a large range of angles.