For Animals, it’s All About Energy….

Animals spend pretty much all their time finding, consuming, storing, conserving, and

converting energy.

Even though animals are living things, not machines, it can be useful to think about them from an engineering perspective... this is what we call biomechanics, and it’s all about energy.

One of the most obvious ways animals use energy is through movement, and as we’ll see,

there are many different successful ways to move.

How an animal moves is one of the first things we notice,

and we can often identify how an animal might move without ever having seen it before- for instance, try ranking these exotic animals in

order of SPEED.

A. B.

C.

E.

D.What do you

think?

From slowest to fastest: B. Honey Badger (30 km/hr), D. Capybara (35 km/hr), A.

Babyrousa (55 km/hr), E. Okapi (60 km/hr), C. Maned wolf (75 km/hr)

A. Babyrousa- related to pigs

B. Honey badger- related to weasels and martens

C. Maned wolf, related to coyotes E. Okapi- related to

giraffes

D. Capybara, the world’s largest rodent

1

23

4

5

Now, let’s try ranking these animals in terms of the FORCE they can apply with their limbs- remember

Newton’s second law? Force = (mass) x (acceleration)... it might help to

imagine how well they could move a rock or accelerate from a stand-still.

A. B.

C.

E.

D.What do you

think?

Do you notice a pattern?

Compare which animals are the fastest and slowest to which animals

produce the most and least force.

How would you describe the relationship between FORCE and

SPEED in these animals?

C.

E.

D.

There’s a trade-off between force and speed. Next we’ll explore

why this is, and what the advantages of each strategy are.

Speed

Force

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