Public lecture: Nature’s Olympians

This public lecture will be delivered by Dr Mark Burnley, Senior Lecturer and Exercise Physiologist in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University.

In this talk, Dr Mark Burnley will take you on an academic safari through the animal kingdom, touching on a wide variety of movement patterns including: terrestrial locomotion (from the peristaltic movement of worms to pentapedal and hopping locomotion in kangaroos), swimming, jet propulsion in squid, and flying in insects, birds and mammals, and how these movements are essential elements of feeding and mating behaviours, as well as to escape predation.

Dr Burnley’s presentation will use investigations of the speed-duration relationship to detail how this problem has been studied in mammals, lizards, crustaceans, fish and birds, in an attempt to identify nature’s champion athletes.