BIO325H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Elastic Energy, Shock Absorber, The Features
Document Summary
Abstract burrows & sutton 2012 j. exp. Externally visible resilinwas compressed and wrinkled as a semilunar process was bent. It then sprung back to restore the semi-lunar process rapidly to its original natural shape. Each of the five nymphalstages jumped and kicked and had a similar distribution of resilinin their semi-lunar processes as adults; the resilinwas shed with the cuticle at each moult. It is suggested that composite storage devices that combine the elastic properties of resilinwith the stiffness of hard cuticle allow energy to be stored by bending hard cuticle over only a small distance and without fracturing. In this way all the stored energy is returned and the natural shape of the femur is restored rapidly so that a jump or kick can be repeated. There is resilin in this region, revealed as a band that fluoresces blue under uv illumination (with appropriate filters to confirm identity).
