Squid are one of the few animals that move by jet propulsion, and a University of North Texas engineer wants to know what happens when a lot of them do it at once.
Paul Krueger, dean of UNT's College of Engineering and a professor of mechanical engineering, is part of a research team looking at how squid arrange themselves and coordinate when they travel in groups, the university announced Monday.
The findings could help engineers design fleets of autonomous underwater vehicles that work together more efficiently, for jobs such as ocean exploration and harbor security, Krueger said in the release.
Two decades of squid research
The group, led by Old Dominion University, also includes an engineer from Southern Methodist University and biologists from Old Dominion and Franklin & Marshall College. According to UNT, the team has studied how squid move for nearly 20 years, first asking whether they are efficient swimmers and how that changes as they grow.
Fish schooling has been studied extensively, the university noted, but much less is known about squid. The animals push water out to move, steer with flexible fins and carry small hairs along their bodies that pick up changes in the water flowing around them.
Krueger compared the question to highway driving: a car handles differently behind a large truck than on an empty road. The researchers want to learn whether a squid trailing others swims differently, whether certain formations save or cost energy, and whether squid can read what their neighbors are doing from shifts in the water.
