Every known way living things get from here to there, by motion

Tree of Locomotion

Every distinct motion living things use to get around, from a bacterium's rotary motor to an albatross riding the wind.

Scroll or pinch to zoom · drag to pan · click a tip to watch it move

Rules for this tree: one tip per distinct motion; body plan, habitat and material go in the examples, never in the structure; realms follow what the animal pushes against, not where it lives. Named modes from the standard vocabularies (Breder and Webb for fish, Hildebrand for gaits, Henrichsen for bacterial surface motility, Jayne for snakes) appear as variants or alternative names. Extinct forms appear where fossils make the motion clear. Seeds and spores sit at the edge on purpose: those organisms don't move, but their offspring use the same physics.