A new study conducted at Georgia Tech found that sandfish (shown here) place their limbs against their sides and create a wave motion with their bodies like snakes to swim through sand.
Georgia Tech graduate student Ryan Maladen (left) and physics assistant professor Daniel Goldman set up the high-speed x-ray imaging system to record the movements of sandfish below the sand surface.
Georgia Tech researchers developed a physics model of sandfish locomotion through granular media. The density of the media did not affect how the sandfish traveled through the sand -- it was always the same snakelike movement.
Ryan Maladen, Daniel Goldman, Yang Ding and Chen Li (left-right) examine how small lizards with smooth scales -- called sandfish -- burrow quickly into and move rapidly through desert sand.