Search the Article Database:

Search our library of articles, papers and other published materials. You can use keywords or boolean-style search:

Evaluating the effects of giraffe skin disease and wire snare wounds on the gaits of free‑ranging Nubian giraffe

Giraffe skin disease (GSD), a condition that results in superficial lesions in certain giraffe (Girafa spp.) populations, has emerged as a potential conservation threat. Preliminary findings suggested that individuals with GSD lesions move with greater difficulty which may in turn reduce their foraging efficiency or make them more vulnerable to predation. A current known threat to some giraffe populations is their mortality associated with entrapment in wire snares, and the morbidity and potential locomotor deficiencies associated with wounds acquired from

View Details + Download

The evolutionary biomechanics of locomotor function in giant land animals

Giant land vertebrates have evolved more than 30 times, notably in dinosaurs and mammals. The evolutionary and biomechanical perspectives considered here unify data from extant and extinct species, assessing current theory regarding how the locomotor biomechanics of giants has evolved. In terrestrial tetrapods, isometric and allometric scaling patterns of bones are evident throughout evolutionary history, reflecting general trends and lineage-specific divergences as animals evolve giant size. Added to data on the scaling of other supportive tissues and neuromuscular control, these

View Details + Download

Gaits in mammals

In recent years there has been a great deal of published work on movements of various mammals, in particular, studies on the bone morphology and range of movements of joints, the muscle structure and places of muscle attachment, the physiology of muscle performance, the peculiarities of species as mechanical systems and the specific leg movements in the gaits of some common mammals — monkeys, cheetahs, dogs, horses and pecoran species. No comprehensive work on the gaits of mammals has been

View Details + Download