This chapter reviews various aspects of cranial kinesis, or the presence of moveable joints within the cranium, with a concentration on lepidosaurs. Previous studies tend to focus on morphological correlates of cranial kinesis, without taking into account experimental evidence supporting or refuting the presence of the various forms of cranial kinesis in these taxa. By reviewing experimental an...

The notions of taxis and kinesis are introduced and used to describe two types of behaviour of an organism in non-uniform conditions: (i) Taxis means the guided movement to more favorable conditions; (ii) Kinesis is the non-directional change in space motion in response to the change of conditions. Migration and dispersal of animals has evolved under control of natural selection. In a simple fo...

Several different types of cranial kinesis are present within modern birds, enabling them to move (part of) the upper bill relative to the braincase. This movement of the upper bill results from movement of the quadrate and the pterygoid-palatine complex (PPC). The taxon Palaeognathae is characterised by a very distinct PPC and a special type of cranial kinesis (central kinesis) that is very di...

OBJECTIVES We tested the feasibility of using analysis of color kinesis images to objectively assess global and regional left ventricular (LV) diastolic function in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). In addition, the ability of this technique to track drug-induced changes on LV diastolic properties was studied. BACKGROUND Diastolic dysfunction contributes to symptomatology in patient...

Although it is generally assumed that cranial kinesis is a plesiomorphic characteristic in squamates, experimental data tend to contradict this hypothesis. In particular, coupled kinesis (i.e. streptostyly and mesokinesis) presumably arose independently in only a limited number of highly specialised groups. In this study, we investigated cranial kinesis in one of the most specialised of these g...

Different forms of intracranial mobility, including streptostyly, pleurokinesis, and prokinesis, have been postulated for many dinosaurs. The basis for inferring kinesis typically has included the presence of presumably synovial intracranial joints (otic and basal joints) and various ad hoc ‘sliding joints’ (many without modern parallels), whereas the protractor musculature that would have powe...

Decoupling of the upper jaw bones--jaw kinesis--is a distinctive feature of the ray-finned fishes, but it is not clear how the innovation is related to the extraordinary diversity of feeding behaviours and feeding ecology in this group. We address this issue in a lineage of ray-finned fishes that is well known for its ecological and functional diversity--African rift lake cichlids. We sequenced...