@Mictorrani
Locomotion - Why Some Animals Seem to Have a Knee Bowing Backwards
*This article is inspired by a post, "**Fun Facts | Animals 1**", by @Gwenie and its last image, of a flamingo, whose legs are discussed. What looks as a knee pointing backwards is in reality the ankle.* https://read.cash/@Gwenie/fun-facts-animals-1-e0dff994 Locomotion Mammals walk in three different ways; they use either **digitigrade**, **plantigrade**, or **ungulate (unguligrade)** locomotion. To make it simple, without paying too much attention to the anatomy of feet or limbs, we can say that: Digitigrades are animals walking on their toes. Examples: birds (with only a couple of exceptions), cats, and dogs. Ungulates are even more extreme, they walk on the nails, that is to say **hooves**. Examples: horses, giraffes, rhinoceroses, pigs, cattle, camels... all hoofed animals. Plantigrades walk on heel and foot. Examples: primates (including humans), bears and rodents. Knee or Ankle? Digitigrade or ungulate design makes the animal a faster runner, and it looks like their hind-legs have the knee bending backwards. But it is not the knee, it is much higher up, close to the body or sometimes hidden in fur or feathers. What we perceive as a reversed knee is anatomically the ankle.
As we can see, bears, which are plantigrades and walk on the heel, do not have this sort of knee-like ankle. That's why they easily can stand upright.
(The images are from Unsplash and Pixabay, CC0/Public Domain. They have been cropped and digitally enhanced.) Copyright © 2020 Meleonymica/Mictorrani. All Rights Reserved. (If you liked this, please consider leaving a tip, either here or via **CoinTr.ee**) https://cointr.ee/mictorrani If you are interested in how nature works, join my community *"**Natural Science (1c4e)**".* https://read.cash/c/natural-science-1c4e You find all my writings on Read.Cash, sorted by topic, *here*. https://read.cash/@Mictorrani/my-available-writings-at-readcash-8faf12d8
7 comments
That's so cool;-; I've never given much thought about looking up locomotive patterns on larger animals (mostly because microbes interest me more 😂😂😂) and i was quite unaware that those leg bendings were their ankles
Has it never occurred to you then to wonder why their knees (as you thought they were) where bending backwards?
Not until now. I was never into animal anatomy much to ever question why. I always thought that it was because of prehistoric ancestors and just accepted it as that ;-; but I'll look into this more later on. It's fascinating new knowledge for me
I came to know a new terms and gain some info..Thanks👍
Very informative!
Thanks for some interesting fun facts. We tend not to think about these very obvious things, but it is so important in the day to day lives of these animals.
That's true. Thank you for the tip.