Issues

Summary: Eurasian tree sparrows exposed to varying durations of captivity stress maintain relatively stable maximum flight performance despite experiencing dramatic changes in both internal milieu and external environment.

Editor's choice: Temporary paralysis of wing-skin-embedded muscles in bats significantly increases wing-membrane camber, reduces preferred flight speed and prevents very slow flight, highlighting their role in control, efficiency and expanding the flight envelope.

Summary: In ladybird beetles (Coccinella septempunctata), setae on the internal edge of elytra coupling store energy, functioning as springs, and thus play an essential role in rapid elytra deployment.

Summary: Bipedal walking in parrots (Agapornis roseicollis) is associated with the adoption of a sidling gait, decoupling the leading and trailing limb into distinct functional roles (exclusively braking and propulsive, respectively).

Highlighted Article: Mussels acclimated to an unpredictable thermal regime produce different physiological performance in terms of energy stores, metabolic capacity, and thermal performance in comparison to mussels acclimated to a predictable thermal regime.

Summary: Domestic canaries apply specific 3D movements of their upper and lower beaks during the various phases of seed processing; this includes extremely fast open–close frequencies during phases of seed positioning.

Summary: Decapod crustacean eggs are not completely isolated by their membranes, which may selectively transport ions to an intra-membrane space. Evidence of osmoregulation indicates an active role of membranes.

Highlighted Article: Trap-jaw ant strikes reveal how tiny elastic systems can rotate precisely at exceedingly high accelerations while retaining slow, multi-degrees of freedom movement.