George Lauder

georgelauder.bsky.social

04 February 2025 23:12

What is the function of the elongate tail in elasmobranch #rays? A 🧵 and a new hypothesis. A paper with @juliachaumel.bsky.social in @royalsociety.org Proceedings B (shorturl.at/PmfYD) shows that the tail of cownose rays (and a few other species studied so far) has an elaborate lateral line.

George Lauder

georgelauder.bsky.social

04 February 2025 23:12

And the @nytimes.com has a nice summary of our work here shorturl.at/onRkL written by @jack-tamisiea.bsky.social‬.

George Lauder

georgelauder.bsky.social

04 February 2025 23:11

We propose that the ray tail acts like a “hydrodynamic antenna” providing detailed information to the ray on water movement behind the body. This video shows the effect of moving water near the tail of a cownose ray as it passes by.