The Biomechanics of Bat Flight: Skeletal Architecture and Functional Performance

飞行是一种真正独特的运动模式：它使极端 对生物体的形态和生理要求，并产生 深远的生态和行为后果。 数百 脊椎动物在地球上生存了数百万年 只有三个血统进化出了持续的能力， 飞行：爬行动物中已灭绝的翼龙;鸟类; 在哺乳动物中，指（翼手目）。 也许是因为 夜间飞行动物的生态机会， 蝙蝠的成功无论如何都是非凡的。 今天，蝙蝠 在数量上比其他任何哺乳动物都要多 在数量上仅次于啮齿动物， 物种，超过900种蝙蝠的生活描述。 此外，蝙蝠的分布比其他任何 除了人类和鲸类动物（鲸和鼠海豚）以外的哺乳动物。 最 作者认为， 蝙蝠的关键适应性创新的动力飞行，即使 我们对这种进化转变的理解 基本的 蝙蝠飞行的翅膀显然是 原始哺乳动物肢体设计的连续修改， 保留前肢的基本拓扑关系 骨骼元素，即使某些方面的形态， 骨骼和周围的软组织 大大改变了。 特别是， 肢体骨架的比例和形状;几何形状和 前肢关节的活动性;附着点，内部 结构和肌肉组织的生理能力;以及 身体内部的质量分布。 我们还需要探索 翅膀骨架在飞行过程中的功能， 翅膀上的骨质。 这个项目将测试假设， 蝙蝠骨骼组成和四肢骨结构 直接针对机翼上繁重的机械要求， 飞行中的骷髅 我们将探讨的可能性， 蝙蝠翼骨的矿物质含量和基本特性 与其他哺乳动物显著不同，并确定应激飞行 在飞行过程中的翅膀骨上。 本案例研究将是一个 一般假设的重要测试，结构设计 脊椎动物四肢的功能是由 运动的要求。

Flight is a truly distinctive locomotor mode: it makes extreme demands on an organism's morphology and physiology, and produces profound ecological and behavioral consequences. In the hundreds of millions of years that vertebrates have inhabited the earth, only three lineages have evolved the capability of sustained flight: the extinct pterosaurs among reptiles; the birds; and within mammals, the (Order Chiroptera). Perhaps because of the ecological opportunities available to nocturnal flying animals, the success of bats has been extraordinary by any measure. Today, bats are more abundant than any other mammalian order in number of individuals and are second only to the rodents in number of species, with over 900 species of living bats described. Furthermore, bats are more widely distributed than any other mammals except humans and cetaceans (whales and porpoises). Most authors have attributed the tremendous evolutionary radiation of bats to the key adaptive innovation of powered flight, even while our understanding of this evolutionary transformation has remained rudimentary. Bats fly using wings that are clearly derived from successive modifications of the primitive mammalian limb design, retaining the basic topological interrelationship of forelimb skeletal elements even while certain aspects of the morphology of the bony elements and the surrounding soft tissues have been greatly altered. In particular, changes have occurred in the proportions and shape of the limb skeleton; the geometry and mobility of the forelimb joints; the attachment points, internal architecture, and physiological capabilities of muscle tissue; and the distribution of mass within the body. We have yet to explore how the wing skeleton functions during flight or the nature of the bony material in wings. This project will test the hypothesis that skeletal composition and limb bone architecture in bats relate directly to the strenuous mechanical demands placed on the wing skeleton during flight. We will explore the possibility that the mineral content and basic properties of bat wing bones differ significantly from other mammals, and determine the stress flight places on wing bones during flight. This case study will be an important test of the general hypothesis that the structural design of limbs in vertebrates is determined by the functional requirements of locomotion.