Simulation of a tumbling trypanosome. The video on the left shows a bloodstream-form trypanosome recorded at 500 fps in culture medium. In such a low-viscosity fluid the trypanosomes typically exhibit flagellar waves running simultaneously from tip to base (indicated by blue arrows) and base to tip (indicated by yellow arrows) with varying frequencies. This results in a tumbling behavior with no or little directional motion. The video on the right shows tumbling simulated with the model trypanosome. The ratio of the flagellar wave frequencies for bending waves running from base to tip and from tip to base was , where we expect a zero swimming velocity.
Alizadehrad D, Krüger T, Engstler M, Stark H
CC BY 4.0
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4288712/bin/pcbi.1003967.s006.wmv">S5 Video</a> from <cite style="font-style:normal">Alizadehrad D, Krüger T, Engstler M, Stark H (2015). "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4288712">Simulating the Complex Cell Design of Trypanosoma brucei and Its Motility</a>". <i>PLOS Computational Biology</i>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier" class="extiw" title="w:Digital object identifier">DOI</a>:<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003967">10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003967</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMID" class="extiw" title="w:PMID">PMID</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25569823">25569823</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PubMed_Central" class="extiw" title="w:PubMed Central">PMC</a>: <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4288712">4288712</a>.</cite>