Outside laboratory conditions and human-made structures, animals rarely encounter flat
surfaces. Instead, natural substrates are uneven surfaces with height variation that ranges …

The world has a complex, three-dimensional (3-D) spatial structure, but until recently the
neural representation of space was studied primarily in planar horizontal environments …

Standard animal behavior paradigms incompletely mimic nature and thus limit our
understanding of behavior and brain function. Virtual reality (VR) can help, but it poses …

Attitude control is an essential flight capability. Whereas flying robots commonly rely on
accelerometers for estimating attitude, flying insects lack an unambiguous sense of gravity …

Locomotion requires a balance between mechanical stability and movement flexibility to
achieve behavioral goals despite noisy neuromuscular systems, but rarely is it considered …

Discovering principles underlying the control of animal behavior requires a tight dialogue
between experiments and neuromechanical models. Such models have primarily been used …

Legged locomotion in terrestrial animals is often essential for mating and survival, and
locomotor behavior must be robust and adaptable to be successful. This adaptability is …

Drosophila melanogaster structures its optic flow during flight by interspersing translational
movements with abrupt body rotations. Whether these “body saccades” are accompanied by …

Diurnal flying animals such as birds depend primarily on vision to coordinate their flight path
during goal-directed flight tasks. To extract the spatial structure of the surrounding …

Many animals rely on optic flow for navigation, using differences in eye image velocity to
detect deviations from their intended direction of travel. However, asymmetries in image …