Squid funnels time their elastic recoil to amplify pulsed jets
Abstract
Pulsed jets propel squid across nearly four orders of magnitude in body size. Each pulse leaves through the funnel, a soft nozzle, but whether its compliance acts within a pulse is not known. We tracked chromatophores on two squid species and found that the funnel dilates and recoils, with a repeatable phase lag, while the mantle is still contracting, and that the lag persists after denervation. For inertia-dominated jets, silicone nozzles, 3D fluid-structure simulations and a reduced-order model agree that the impulse reaches about 4× the rigid value when the nozzle response time is 0.2 to 0.4 of the jet-acceleration time, a range that overlaps the in vivo timing. The wall stores strain energy during acceleration and returns it during expulsion (akin to an elastic capacitor), which we term "superpropulsion". Synthetic nozzles tuned for superpropulsion launch jets farther in air, disperse dye faster, and drive a boat faster at a lower cost of transport.
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BibTeX
@misc{choi2026squid,
title = {{Squid funnels time their elastic recoil to amplify pulsed jets}},
author = {Daehyun Choi and Paras Singh and Ian Bergerson and Minho Kim and Jieun Park and Halley J. Wallace and Kenny Zhang and Sandy Y. Hsieh and Aqua T. Asberry and Theodore A. Uyeno and William F. Gilly and Hyungmin Park and Daeshik Kang and Chandan Bose and Saad Bhamla},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2605.03239},
eprint = {2605.03239},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.03239},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Squid funnels time their elastic recoil to amplify pulsed jets
AU - Daehyun Choi
AU - Paras Singh
AU - Ian Bergerson
AU - Minho Kim
AU - Jieun Park
AU - Halley J. Wallace
AU - Kenny Zhang
AU - Sandy Y. Hsieh
AU - Aqua T. Asberry
AU - Theodore A. Uyeno
AU - William F. Gilly
AU - Hyungmin Park
AU - Daeshik Kang
AU - Chandan Bose
AU - Saad Bhamla
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/28
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2605.03239
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.03239
AB - Pulsed jets propel squid across nearly four orders of magnitude in body size. Each pulse leaves through the funnel, a soft nozzle, but whether its compliance acts within a pulse is not known. We tracked chromatophores on two squid species and found that the funnel dilates and recoils, with a repeatable phase lag, while the mantle is still contracting, and that the lag persists after denervation. For inertia-dominated jets, silicone nozzles, 3D fluid-structure simulations and a reduced-order model agree that the impulse reaches about 4× the rigid value when the nozzle response time is 0.2 to 0.4 of the jet-acceleration time, a range that overlaps the in vivo timing. The wall stores strain energy during acceleration and returns it during expulsion (akin to an elastic capacitor), which we term "superpropulsion". Synthetic nozzles tuned for superpropulsion launch jets farther in air, disperse dye faster, and drive a boat faster at a lower cost of transport.
ER -