When a dog gets wet , what does it do ? suffice : it stir , and very expeditiously — a large , soggy dog can shed as much as 70 % of the water in its fur in just four seconds .
But mammalian of all shape and sizes employ the agile - shake maneuver to dry themselves . Now , a team of researcher has used high - speed video and fur particle trailing to understand the common strong-arm characteristics that unify the wet - shake of 33 animal from 16 species .
The research worker , led by Georgia Institue of Technology life scientist David Hu , demonstrate that whether it ’s a black eye , a laughingstock , a dog or a bear , the shake of a wet mammal is anything but random . On the opposite , the investigator indite that the absolute frequency of an animal ’s shake — i.e. , the act of clip it oscillates its eubstance per second — is tuned to “ ( i ) the animal ’s size and ( ii ) the properties of body of water , namely open stress and concentration , ” in orderliness to bump off as much water as possible with minimal strong-arm drive .
low animals , like mouse and rat , tune their handclasp to a high frequency , oscillating fast so as to get the motor force-out necessary to get the better of the strength of the surface tension that keep H2O attached to their pelt . large animals , by comparison , can tune up their shakes to much lower frequency to generate the same effect . ( The video up top , compiled by the Nature news squad , illustrate various animals shaking to their tuned frequencies . )
“ If … all brute shake at the relative frequency of a dog , ” explicate the researchers , “ the small animals would have deficient forcefulness to remove drops : for example , a mouse shaking at 4 rather than 30 Hz would generate only one thou of motor force , and would remain just as wet . ”
escaped skin also factors into the equation . “ By whipping around the torso , ” loose skin allow some mammals to sire motor forces as great as seventy clip that of gravity , increasing “ the speed of drib leaving the beast and the result dispassion relative to mingy dermal tissue . ”
The researcher ’ findings are published in the latest issue of theJournal of the Royal Society Interface .
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