ABSTRACT
Flying snakes (genus Chrysopelea) glide without the use of wings. Instead, they splay their ribs and undulate through the air. A snake's ability to glide depends on how well its morphing wing-body produces lift and drag forces. However, previous kinematics experiments under-resolved the body, making it impossible to estimate the aerodynamic load on the animal or to quantify the different wing configurations throughout the glide. Here, we present new kinematic analyses of a previous glide experiment, and use the results to test a theoretical model of flying snake aerodynamics using previously measured lift and drag coefficients to estimate the aerodynamic forces. This analysis is enabled by new measurements of the center of mass motion based on experimental data. We found that quasi-steady aerodynamic theory under-predicts lift by 35% and over-predicts drag by 40%. We also quantified the relative spacing of the body as the snake translates through the air. In steep glides, the body is generally not positioned to experience tandem effects from wake interaction during the glide. These results suggest that unsteady 3D effects, with appreciable force enhancement, are important for snake flight. Future work can use the kinematics data presented herein to form test conditions for physical modeling, as well as computational studies to understand unsteady fluid dynamics effects on snake flight.
Footnotes
Author contributions
Conceptualization: I.J.Y., S.D.R., J.J.S.; Methodology: I.J.Y., S.D.R., J.J.S.; Software: I.J.Y., J.J.S.; Validation: I.J.Y.; Formal analysis: I.J.Y., S.D.R.; Investigation: I.J.Y., S.D.R., J.J.S.; Resources: S.D.R., J.J.S.; Data curation: I.J.Y.; Writing - original draft: I.J.Y., S.D.R., J.J.S.; Writing - review & editing: I.J.Y., S.D.R., J.J.S.; Visualization: I.J.Y.; Supervision: S.D.R., J.J.S.; Project administration: S.D.R., J.J.S.; Funding acquisition: S.D.R., J.J.S.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant 1351322 to J.J.S., grants 1537349 and 1922516 to S.D.R., and grants 0966125 and 2027523 to S.D.R. and J.J.S. I.J.Y. was supported by the Biological Transport (BIOTRANS) Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program at Virginia Tech.
Data availability
Data from the glide trials are available from GitHub: https://github.com/TheSochaLab/Undulation-enables-gliding-in-flying-snakes. Code used to analyze the glide trials and perform the glide simulations is also available from GitHub: https://github.com/TheSochaLab/Quasi-steady-aerodynamic-theory-under-predicts-glide-performance-in-flying-snakes.
