Bats are an extraordinary evolutionary success, the only mammals to conquer the air. Their flying ability has long attracted the attention of engineers and biologists, and it comes through soft, flexible wings unlike those of birds or insects.
Their wings have long muscles embedded in the skin, running front to back, and not attached to any bones. Scientists had suspected that these muscles probably helped shape the wings in flight, but evidence was lacking.
Now, in experiments at Brown University with Jamaican fruit bats, Jorn Cheney, a graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology, and others, including Kenny Breuer and Sharon Swartz, have found signs that the muscles do indeed contract on the downstroke when bats are flying.
That evidence was not easy to come by. As they report in the June issue of Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, the team inserted thin electrodes into the muscles to record their activity while the bats were flying in a wind tunnel.
At the same time, they shot high-speed video and coordinated the data.
But they still need to show that the action of the muscles actually improves bat flight. And for that, says Dr. Swartz, they need that staple of the cosmetic surgery industry, Botox.
“By applying a very small amount of Botox in the wing,” she said, they could determine the difference between flying with and without the use of those small muscles.Continue reading the main story
The research could have some use in designing soft-winged robots, but she said the real reason for the research is that “bats are one of the enormous successes of mammalian evolution.” Understanding these muscles and how their function may vary in different species could illuminate how that evolution occurred.Continue reading the main story