The aerodynamic efficiency of the albatross has always fascinated researchers and the designing of drones mimicking the albatross’s aerodynamic traits have been a major area of interest for the aerospace industry. This review sheds light on the traits behind an albatross’s aerodynamic efficiency such as dynamic soaring, bell shaped lift distribution and provides insights into its hereditary posed encodings and evolutions. The soaring techniques have been introduced and discussed along with the albatross’s morphology and structure which is responsible for its efficiency. In addition, the albatross’s navigational and foraging strategies are briefly discussed to provide a better understanding of the effects of atmospheric conditions on the albatross’s flight characteristics and the limitations.

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Delta wing has numerous applications across aerospace vehicles. Highly inclined and variable swept back wings have a lot of added advantages in maneuverable fighter airplanes, supersonic cruise airliner; and modern unmanned aerial vehicles that have been equipped with and have deployed low swept back delta wings. Vortex flow across these delta wings is dominant for micro aerial vehicles and mini unmanned aerial vehicles flying at a low speed Reynolds number regime. Many experiments were carried out to study and analyze the aerodynamic flow parameters of delta wings wherein vortex sheet flow patterns were observed and studied at different angles of attack and flow parameters. In this paper we are plotting lift co-efficient and drag coefficient for a flat delta wing with and without winglets at different angles of attack under low Reynolds numbers. Furthermore, simulations are carried out to draw comparisons between the winglets on the basis of span-wise flow velocity vectors.

An animal health check-up and treatment camp during the year 2015 for the free ranging mithun (Bos frontalis) organized at Khonoma and Jotsoma villages of Kohima district, Nagaland showed Ixodid tick infestation on these animals, with the ticks attached to the dewlap and inner aspects of the thighs. Based on their morphological features, the ticks were identified to belong to the genus Ixodes. However, identification of these ticks to Ixodes ovatus and I. acutitarsus was made by the sequence analysis of the internal transcribed spacer-2 region of these ticks. The present study showed both I. ovatus and I. acutitatarsus are prevalent on the mithun in this area and is the first report on the occurrence of I. ovatus on the mithun.