Cranial kinematics and prey-type effects in Amia ocellicauda feeding strikes

Variability in the biomechanics and kinematics of prey capture in vertebrates has been studied extensively, with evidence of multiple strategies for successful feeding in many taxa. Early research into suction feeding strikes in fishes hypothesized that fish utilize a set of pre-programmed strike kinematics that cannot be altered once initiated. However, more recent evidence has demonstrated that teleost fishes not only deploy unique strike kinematics for different prey types, but that they also alter their kinematics in response to a prey item attempting to escape. It has not yet been explicitly investigated whether non-teleost actinopterygians can also modulate the strike in response to different prey types. Here we examined the kinematics of suction strikes in bowfin, Amia ocellicauda, a holostean fish most closely related to gars. We recorded Amia feeding on both feeder fish and worms, two types of live prey differing in evasiveness, using X-Ray Reconstruction of Moving Morphology (..., XROMM data collection, tracked using XMA Lab version 1.5.5 and exported with 50Hz filter. Rigid body and 3D point transformations were then applied to bones meshes in Autdesk Maya 2020 and analyzed using R Version 4.3.1., , # Cranial kinematics and prey-type effects in Amia ocellicauda feeding strikes

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.c866t1ghn](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.c866t1ghn)

## Description of the data and file structure

### Files and variables

#### File: VolDataByTrial.csv

\**Description:**contains oral cavity volume measurements constructed from alpha hulls applied to the skeletal elements throughout each trial. Column names indicate the data category and rows correspond to frames, where all trials are concatenated by row. DoubleFullVolume is in cm3 and was calculated as 2x the alpha hull volume, as the alpha hull fills one half of the oral cavity from the body midline. Expansion rate is in cm3/sec and time is in milliseconds.

#### File: Kinematics\_DataByTrial.csv

\**Description:**contains rotations and translations of each skeletal element, calculated distances, individual, and key trial metadata for each trial. Column names indicate the data category and rows correspond to frames, where ...,