While speediness is a priority for any animal trying to escape a predator or avoid a fall, a new study by Simon Fraser University researchers suggests that even the fastest reflexes among all animals are remarkably slow.
While speediness is a priority for any animal trying to escape a predator or avoid a fall, a new study by Simon Fraser University researchers suggests that even the fastest reflexes among all animals are remarkably slow.
“Animals as small as shrews and as large as elephants are built out of the same building blocks of nerve and muscle,” says Max Donelan, a professor of biomedical physiology and kinesiology (BPK) and director of SFU’s Locomotion Lab. “We sought to understand how these building blocks are configured in different-sized animals, and how this limits their performance.”
The study is published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Since an animal’s life can hinge on how quickly it can sense and respond to stimuli, the team set out to quantify the speed of the fastest reflex involved in the locomotion of terrestrial mammals ranging in size from minuscule shrews to massive elephants.
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Image via Simon Fraser University.
