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On the heterocercal tail in sharks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

Keith Stewart Thomson
Keith Stewart Thomson*
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, and Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520
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Abstract

A new account of the mechanical action of the heterocercal tail in fishes is given, developed from study of the swimming of sharks. The heterocercal tail is capable of delivering a thrust that can be oriented in a wide range of angles in the vertical plane. The orientation results from a balance of forces acting in the tail. Normally the heterocercal tail delivers neither an epibatic nor a hypobatic thrust, but rather one directly through the center of gravity of the fish. On the basis of the new account, predictions concerning the shape and proportions of the heterocercal tail are made and tested.

Type
Research Article
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , Winter 1976 , pp. 19 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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References

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