Toward Reconstruction of Body-flipper Coordination in Plesiosaur Locomotion

Abstract

The Plesiosauria are a group of aquatic reptiles lived from the Late Triassic Period into the Late Cretaceous Period．They were unique because they evolved four large wing-like flippers almost identical in size and shape． Due to this unique body structure， it has been assumed that plesiosaurs may have performed a unique swimming style． However， the locomotor patterns of plesiosaurs are yet to be understood．To reconstruct their locomotion，we develop plesiosaurs-like robots and aim to understand the role of plesiosaurs trunk and verify plesiosaurs swimming stability through robot experiments． In this paper，we focus on the relationship of inter-flipper and trunk coordination in plesiosaurs locomotion because previous studies have verify flipper coordination without plesiosaurs trunk．