Dear colleagues,
I wanted to draw your attention to a paper published last year in PNAS
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/44/17874
where we analyze physical aspects of how euglenoids move
http://euglena.msu.edu/public_html/Movies/Eutreptiella/eutrep2.mov
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKDEqILudC0&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TwAaPO9q-4
These graceful movements are mediated by the active deformation of the cell envelope through simple in-plane shear. Thus, it relates to topics studied by the mechanics community, including non-Euclidean plates. I am not aware of another system that uses this shape morphing principle. Although in this paper we analyze just axisymmetric motions, euglenids execute more general deformations, which can also be achieved by simple shear.