Grasping onto evolution: testing hypotheses on adaptive evolution of animal prehensile systems

Prehensile systems have evolved multiple times independently among vertebrates. Prehensile tails is just one of those, which can be found in fishes, reptiles and mammals. With this project, we want to study how the musculoskeletal system has become adapted for this function, by performing biomechanical analyses and testing models using 3D printing. From that, we can also derive potential applications in industry or biomedical sciences.