Bipedal Locomotion in Lizards

Why go bipedal? Locomotion and morphology in Australian agamid lizards.

Bipedal locomotion by lizards has previously been considered to provide a locomotory advantage. We examined this premise for a group of quadrupedal Australian agamid lizards, which vary in the extent to which they will become bipedal. The percentage of strides that each species ran bipedally, recorded using high speed video cameras, was positively related to body size and the proximity of the b...

Bipedal locomotion in crawling cells.

Many complex cellular processes from mitosis to cell motility depend on the ability of the cytoskeleton to generate force. Force-generating systems that act on elastic cytoskeletal elements are prone to oscillating instabilities. In this work, we have measured spontaneous shape and movement oscillations in motile fish epithelial keratocytes. In persistently polarized, fan-shaped cells, retracti...

Comparative three-dimensional kinematics of the hindlimb for high-speed bipedal and quadrupedal locomotion of lizards

Although lizards have been model organisms for testing locomotor performance and in ecomorphological studies, the limb movements of lizards during high-speed locomotion are poorly understood. Thus, we quantified the three-dimensional kinematics of the hindlimb, body and tail for five morphologically distinct species of lizard during steady-speed locomotion near maximum sprinting speed (2-5 m s-...

Mechanics of locomotion in lizards.

Lizards bend their trunks laterally with each step of locomotion and, as a result, their locomotion appears to be fundamentally different from mammalian locomotion. The goal of the present study was to determine whether lizards use the same two basic gaits as other legged animals or whether they use a mechanically unique gait due to lateral trunk bending. Force platform and kinematic measuremen...

Towards Muscle Driven Bipedal Locomotion