locomotion
- Stepping pattern changes in the caterpillar Manduca sexta: the effects of orientation and substrate
Highlighted Article: The stepping patterns of Manduca sexta (caterpillars) vary with substrate and orientation, indicating that they can detect and respond to the mechanical properties of the environment with which they interact.
- The biomechanics of knuckle-walking: 3-D kinematics of the chimpanzee and macaque wrist, hand and fingers
Highlighted Article: The first 3-D kinematics of the knuckle-walking chimpanzee hand illustrates unique characteristics as well as shared commonalities with digitigrade and palmigrade walking of macaques.
- To walk or to run – a question of movement attractor stability
Summary: In accordance with the dynamical systems theory, lower limb attractor stability is highest at a particular gait mode closest to the corresponding preferred speed.
- Walking with added mass magnifies salient features of human foot energetics
Summary: Walking with added mass altered the force demand under which human legs normally operate, which highlights the versatility of human feet.
- Asymmetrical gait kinematics of free-ranging callitrichine primates in response to changes in substrate diameter and orientation
Summary: Free-ranging callitrichine primates adjust aspects of asymmetrical gait kinematics to promote stability when moving over arboreal substrates varying in diameter and orientation angle.
- The aerodynamic force platform as an ergometer
Summary: An accurate method for measuring the time-resolved aerodynamic power generated during free flight using direct force measurements from an aerodynamic force platform and the measured 3D wing velocity.
- Surprising simplicities and syntheses in limbless self-propulsion in sand
Summary: Dry sandy environments present challenges to animal locomotion, but are also amenable to several useful experimental and theoretical methods, which can generate uncommonly rich insights into animal locomotion.
- Walking kinematics in the polymorphic seed harvester ant Messor barbarus: influence of body size and load carriage
Summary: Scale effect rather than morphological differences explain the variability in load-carrying performance in different-sized individuals in the polymorphic ant species Messor barbarus.