Animal locomotion

The structure of animals reflects their locomotor habits, if any, in four distinct environments: aerial (including arboreal), aquatic, fossorial (underground), and terrestrial. The physical restraints on movement are gravity and drag, although these may be considered negligible in aquatic and terrestrial locomotion respectively. Movement may be achieved by modifications of the body shape (eg squid, eel or leech), by the operation of special appendages, or by drifting according to wind or water currents.

The structure of groups or individual personalities reflects their mode of movement through society, whether through conceptual realms and frameworks, through administrative or behavioural infrastructures, or over the interface between the latter and the former. The restraints on such mobility are inertia, the weight of attachment, or attraction to any particular social setting and the general social resistance acting to inhibit any speech change, although these may be significantly reduced in some contexts. Movement may be achieved by general modifications of structure (e.g. a demonstrating crowd, an infantry manoeuvre, or a tribal war party), by the action of special sections (e.g. public relations, research), or by drifting with the prevailing current of opinion.

The close relationship between the varieties of structure and the varieties of movement.

There is widespread recognition of individual mobility, of groups 'on the move', if the problems of overcoming resistance to such movements and of 'getting things moving'. There is little explicit understanding of the ways in which groups and individuals move in society, although frequent use is made of such phrases as 'burrowing' (e.g. through archives), 'wriggling like an eel' (e.g. in a negotiation), 'rising' (e.g. above sordid details).

The many specialized forms of aquatic, aerial, fossorial and terrestrial locomotion. Annual migrations and transhumane. Contrast with motion in man-made vehicles.