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Biomechanics

Swimming in the Sahara

The sandfish, a type of desert lizard, can vanish into a sandy substrate in a blink of an eye. Approaches that draw on mathematics, physics and engineering provide complementary insights into how the animal achieves this feat.

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Figure 1: Going, going, almost gone.

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Correspondence to Stephanie B. Crofts or Adam P. Summers.

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Crofts, S., Summers, A. Swimming in the Sahara. Nature 472, 177–178 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/472177a

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