Tail Base Deflection but not Tail Curvature Varies with Speed in Lizards: Results from an Automated Tracking Analysis Pipeline

Synopsis Tail movement is an important component of vertebrate locomotion and likely contributes to dynamic stability during steady-state locomotion. Previous results suggest that the tail plays a significant role in lizard locomotion, but little data are available on tail motion during locomotion and how it differs with morphological, ecological, and phylogenetic parameters. We collected high-speed vertical climbing and horizontal locomotion video data from 43 lizard species from four taxonomic groups (Agamidae, Gekkota, Scincidae, and Varanidae) across four habitats. We introduce a new semi-automated and generalizable analysis pipeline for tail and spine motion analysis including markerless pose-estimation, semi-automated kinematic recognition, and muti-species data analysis. We found that step length relative to snout-vent length (SVL) increased with tail length relative to SVL. Examining spine cycles agnostic to limb stride phase, we found that ranges of inter-tail bending compared with inter-spine bending increased with relative tail length, while ranges of tail deflection relative to spine deflection increased with relative speed. Considering stepwise strides, we found the angular velocity and acceleration of the tail center of mass increased with relative speed. These results will provide general insights into the biomechanics of tails in sprawling locomotion enabling biomimetic applications in robotics, and a better understanding of vertebrate form and function. We look forward to adding more species, behaviors, and locomotor speeds to our analysis pipeline through collaboration with other research groups.

Automated summary

Tail length contributes to increased step length, tail motion ranges increase with relative tail length, and tail deflection ranges increase with relative speed.