This work is concerned with the array morphology of the selected biological systems: bats, crickets and fish.

For the bat model system , we focus on the different shapes of the noseleaves (protrusions around the nostrils where sounds comes out in some bat species) and outer ears of the animals. There are about 1000 different bat species in the world. Among these species, many different lifestyles can be found, for example with respect to the environment the animals live in and the type of food they feed on. Likewise, the shapes of the noseleaves and outer ears can differ a lot between species. In the CILIA project, we are trying to build a data base containing accurate digital models, based on micro-CT data, of the noseleaf and ear shapes in as many bat species as possible.

We also use micro-CT imaging technology to build digital models of cricket cerci . The properties of the cercus we are interested in concern the spatial distribution of the hairs over the cercus surface, the hair orientations, hair lengths and diameters and the overall shape and surface roughness of the cercus. Image processing tools are being developed to extract these parameters and their distributions (semi-) automatically.

When we refer to the sensor array for the fish we mean the morphology of the lateral line system . For the superficial neuromasts this means both their spatial distribution over the exterior surface of the fish as well as their orientation sensitivity. Microscopic techniques are used to collect this information. For the canal neuromasts, we extract the precise morphology of the canals from micro-CT images of the entire fish body. Since, processing this information by hand is very labor intensive we are developing (semi-) automatic tools to speed up this task.