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Bipedal Bipedals are found among many branches of animal life, not just mammals: Ostriches along with many other birds are bipedal, as are kangaroos. Bipedals are almost exclusively land living, as sea animals rarely have use for legs unless they live on the bottom of the sea, where a larger number of legs is favoured. Bipedalism is mainly advantageous for freeing up the front limbs (as in humans and birds) and for fast locomotion, and in fact a few creatures like cockroaches will rear up on their hindlegs when moving quickly. www.ebroadcast.com.au /lookup/encyclopedia/bi/Bipedal.html   (135 words)

COMPARATIVE BIPEDALISM: How the rest of the animal kingdom walks on two legs (Philosophistry) Bipedality is often casually cited as the prime evolutionary adaptation that distinguishes humankind by enabling the use of tools. Finally, there are three instances of bipedal evolution in mammals: the marsupial ricochet form (kangaroos), the placental ricochet form (kangaroo mice), and primates and humans with their alternating gait (Snyder 1962). The image that comes to mind considering kangaroos and their bipedal exploitation of open habitats is that of the ancestral hominid in the open plains of the savannah; similar ecological pressures may have faced both hominids and kangaroos when bipedalism was evolving. www.philosophistry.com /static/bipedalism.html   (2919 words)

Bipedalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Bipedalism is standing, or moving for example by walking, running, or hopping, on two appendages (typically legs). Bipedalism in the form of reared-up running can also be found in some insects such as the cockroach. Bipedal wading has been observed in the bonobo, chimpanzees, the lowland gorillas, orang utans, baboons and proboscis monkey. en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Bipedal   (2928 words)

Bipedal Wading in Hominoidae Past and Present Hunt (1994:p183) wrote “Contexts that elicit bipedalism in extant apes may provide evidence of the selective pressures that led to hominid bipedalism.” Specifically for any support of the wading-origins model to be implied one would expect that extant apes should move bipedally when observed in water. If bonobos were more bipedal than chimpanzees it could be used as an argument in favour of the wading origin as their habitat is generally wetter and more prone to flooding. Certainly, if bipedalism had arisen in a savannah environment, one would expect that chimpanzees and not bonobos would be the more bipedal as that species inhabits the generally more open habitat. www.riverapes.com /Me/Work/BipedalismThesis.htm   (4359 words)

Biped Summary Among the non-archosaur reptiles bipedalism is rare, and it is unknown among the amphibians, however it its found in the "reared-up" running of certain lizards. However the maximum bipedal speed appears less fast than the maximum speed of quadrapedal movement with a flexible backbone - compare the fastest bipeds the ostrich (65 km/h) or the red kangaroo (70 km/h) with the fastest quadruped, the cheetah (120 km/h). Bipedal wading is found among the semi-bipedal wading cousins of humans, the bonobo chimps, the lowland gorillas, and proboscis monkeys. www.bookrags.com /Biped   (2740 words)

The Origin of Bipedalism Eighty percent of chimpanzee bipedalism is during feeding with arm-hanging stabilizing the posture 93% of the time in terminal branches and 52% in the central parts of trees. Bipedality is also inferred for the 4.4 mya Ardipithecus ramidis by the anterior foramen magnum (White, et. The short lower limbs and broad pelvis of early bipedal Australopithecines are arboreal adaptations, not terrestrial, as are long forelimbs enabling greater access to food and facilitating arm-hanging. www.jqjacobs.net /anthro/paleo/bipedalism.html   (889 words)

Footsteps Through Time - Lesson 1 Bipedalism, the ability two walk on two feet, is considered the most important hominid trait. Since heat stress is an adaptive problem for savanna-living animals, bipedalism helps keep the body cool since it means less surface area hit by the sun and more surface area cooled by the wind. In addition, bipedalism is an efficient form of terrestrial locomotion as compared to primate quadrupedalism found in the Great Apes. www.abouthumanevolution.net /html/lesson1.htm   (771 words)

Origin of Dinosaurs and Mammals - Erickson In the Middle and Late Triassic, bipedality became increasingly common among the thecodonts and evolved independently in several lineages including the one that led to the dinosaurs. This capacity for two-legged locomotion was undoubtedly a necessary prerequisite for the eventual adoption of an obligatory bipedal gait in archosaurs. Bipedal hopping, and the analogy with modern kangaroos, solves many problems about the early dinosaurs, especially the development of the fully erect bipedal gait and the adoption of a permanent bipedal pose. microlnx.com /dinosaurs/Bipedality.html   (4349 words)

Bipedal and quadrupedal locomotion in lizards   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06) The ability of lizards to run bipedally has long intrigued both laypeople and biologists, but with the exception of a few studies, little is understood of the detailed mechanism by which lizards run bipedally? A phylogenetic tree of five morphologically and behaviorally distinct desert lizards used in studies of high-speed kinematics and bipedal and quadrupedal locomotion. Most biologists and laypeople envision bipedal locomotion as occurring with a high trunk angle, but this may be true only for certain specialized species and slow locomotion. www.tulane.edu /~irschick/Bipedal_quad.htm   (520 words)

Bipedal and Quadrupedalism Page 3   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06) The importance of stance has always been thought to be critical in the interpretation of Pterosaur behavior and locomotive ability; quadrupedal stance was thought to be indicative of ungainly locomotion on the ground, and bipedal stance indicative of superior locomotion. This is probably no longer true, the track ways supporting quadrupedal locomotion indicate that the pterosaur which made them spent a large amount of time on the ground and foraged for food. Whether Pterosaurs were quadrupedal or bipedal is not important when considering the ground locomotive capabilities. hoopermuseum.earthsci.carleton.ca /ptero/bipedal_page3.htm   (267 words)

Human bipedal locomotion device - Patent 5016869 By action in series is meant the usual definition of mechanical action in series, so that forces in both lever and spring are equal, except for constants of proportionality determined by the mechanical advantages of the constituent parts, while the extensions due to lever and spring motion are algebraically added. The bipedal device includes a generally rectangular rigid back frame 16 attached to the back of the user by suitable padding and a shoulder harness 18 and a lower pelvic harness 20 having a waist strap 22. The two leg frames are connected to the main springs in such a way as to act on it in parallel so that compression of either leg frame induces a consequent and similar compression of the other leg frame by means of their common attachment to the spring means. www.freepatentsonline.com /5016869.html   (7976 words)

Body Bipedal But Hunt's observation of chimps has added a new wrinkle: chimps are bipedal while eating tiny fruits both when on the ground, consistent with Jolly's hypothesis, and when in trees. Bipedalism is useful to chimps when feeding in either location. Even though australo-pithecines were bipedal, Hunt surmises that they, too, spent a good deal of time climbing in trees rather than walking on the ground. www.indiana.edu /~rcapub/v18n1/p18.html   (1525 words)

CHESS Bipedal Walking group Significant credit must be given to Arthur Kuo at the University of Michigan, who's bipedal walker simulation pointed us in the right direction. Notice that xi for this 3D model is the same as that for the 2D model; the state vector is a Matlab array consisting of the following angles and velocities: ["roll angle" "stance angle" "nonstance angle" "roll angular velocity" "stance angular velocity" "nonstance angular velocity"]. Type "walk3(xi, 10, 1)" and compare the graphs to those of the reconstructed 3D bipedal robot. chess.eecs.berkeley.edu /bipeds/simulation.html   (911 words)

System's Lab A five-element bipedal locomotion model with proper parametric formulation is considered to demonstrate the utility of the proposed approach. This approach possesses three distinct advantages: i) it eliminates the reaching phase, ii) it provides means to predict the entire motion and directly control the evolution of tracking errors, iii) it facilitates the trajectory planning process in the joint and/or cartesian spaces. The new control method is applied to regulate the locomotion of a five element bipedal locomotion model. engr.smu.edu /me/syslab/LOCOMOTION/index.html   (688 words)

An Investigation of Bipedal Walking Humanoid bipedal walking has the prospect of being a very flexible framework for creating moving machines. The primary challenge in achieving this generality in bipedal walking is dynamics. In the past, bipedal research has focused on dynamically stable machines that are only capable of falling in certain directions due to external supports. www.roboticsclub.org /oldprojects/bip-surg.html   (804 words)

Ancient running reptile was bipedal, say Science researchers Evidence for the reptile's bipedal abilities come from close analysis of the proportions of Eudibamus' arms and legs. These proportions are usually indicative of bipedal locomotion, since longer legs lengthen an animal's overall stride, increasing its speed. Other evidence of bipedalism comes from the arrangement of the hip, knee, and ankle joints in the reptile's lower limb. www.eurekalert.org /pub_releases/2000-11/AAft-Arrw-0211100.php   (798 words)

Bipedal Reptile Fossil Predates Dinosaurs This small reptile was also a herbivore and the researchers interpret its upright, bipedal ability as a mechanism for escaping predators, not becoming one as in the case of dinosaurs. What makes this find even more significant is that most of the reptiles that lived during the early Permian were characterized by massive girdles, short, stocky limbs, a sprawling posture and gait, and relatively slow locomotion. The oldest known fossil of an upright, bipedal reptile, which predates the age of the dinosaurs by at least 60 million years, has been discovered by an international team of scientists including two University of Toronto paleontologists. www.scienceagogo.com /news/20001006065123data_trunc_sys.shtml   (878 words)

Steve Jackson Games Forums - Hex space for bipedal creatures I am about to convert to 4th ed and was actually wondering if all those charts were in the 4th edition rule books. Say, at SM +3, a bipedal creature (a big honkin' giant) takes up 3 hexes in a circle, a SM +6 creatire takes up 7 hexes. What I sought when I started this thread (and still now seek) was some sort of guide by Size Modifier for a bipedal creature. forums.sjgames.com /showthread.php?t=21081   (889 words)

Bipedal Projects & Info The University of Brussels in Belgium has a bipedal walking robot project underway. bipedal walker project underway for about a year. Yobotics which is an offshoot from the MIT leg laboratory, is marketing the M2 walker which was developed at MIT. www.androidworld.com /prod28.htm   (563 words)

Sasquatch The bipedal gait, i.e., kinematics, of a running Sasquatch does not markedly differ from the bipedal gait of a human. The kinematics of bipedal running are certainly quite complex, but it should not be a mistaken conjecture to assign great similarities with the gait and physical mechanics of a Sasquatch to a human counterpart. Sasquatch is a real, living bipedal hominid that is higher in intelligence than most animals, yet still has many animal behaviors and instincts. ourworld.compuserve.com /homepages/dtrapp/bigfoot.htm   (13362 words)

Stable Forward Dynamic Simulation of Bipedal Gait Using Space-Time Analysis   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06) Within the biomechanist community, there is a rhetorical hypothesis that both movement trajectory and joint torque are modulated or adapted to maintain dynamic stability in bipedal walking. We propose a bipedal walking control algorithm that simultaneously solves for movement trajectory and joint torque without relying on any a priori assumptions regarding one or the other. The absence of such assumptions permits the study of pathologic movement dysfunctions where the desired movements and torques are unknown. www.cs.virginia.edu /~gfx/pubs/bipedal_gait   (224 words)

collision detection: Hydrostatic bipedal movement! That's why I was so pleased to hear of the recent discovery that some tropical octopi have learned to wrap six of their legs around their heads -- and walk on the remaining two, upright like humans. Check out the video here: It is, as UC Berkeley grad student Crissy Huffard excitedly reports, the first-ever example of "hydrostatic bipedal movement". Huffard and coauthor Robert Full, professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley, think that this bipedal walking is a strategy octopuses use to backpedal away from predators while remaining camouflaged. www.collisiondetection.net /mt/archives/2005/03/_it_wouldnt_fee.html   (450 words)

An Anthropomorphic Bipedal Robot (ResearchIndex) A bipedal human-like walker offers significant advantages over 4-legged, 6-legged and wheeled robots. However, the gain in dexterity comes at the expense of controlling complexity as bipedal walking structures are extremely unstable. A miniature bipedal robot was designed and constructed. citeseer.ist.psu.edu /439055.html   (453 words)

Bipedal autonomous robot BART-UH Each leg of BARt-UH is composed of three joints, the hip joint, the knee and the ankle resulting for a total of six degrees of freedom for the robot. Since February 2003: BARt-UH is used as an experimental platform in the research project Falling Down and Getting Up of Bipedal Two-Legged Robots. Albert, A., Suppa, M., Gerth, W. Detection of Stair Dimensions for the Path Planning of a Bipedal Robot. www.irt.uni-hannover.de /irt/asr/bart-en.html   (822 words)

Engadget Search There are already a number of bipedal or bipedal-like bots, exoskeletons, suits, assists, and devices, but Atsuo Takanishi's team at Waseda University, in conjunction with Japanese robot superpower tmsuk, unveiled their new WL-16RIII walkbot. The Battlefield Extraction and Retrieval Robot is a new bipedal droid designed to carry injured soldiers off of the... We're starting to think that having the best bipedal robot is becoming a matter of national pride (and if so, we are way, way behind here in the States), with the South Koreans stepping up with the KHR-3, a new humanoid-like bot that is about... robots.engadget.com /search/?q=bipedal   (826 words)

07.11.2001 - Ethiopian find shows human ancestors walked upright as early as 5 million years ago Above, a collection of fragments from Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba point to bipedalism as early as 5.2 million years ago. Another argument that the fossils are from a hominid, not an ape, is that the toe bone shows a slanted surface at the rear joint, which is characteristic of bipedal walking. This is caused by toeing-off — pushing forward by leaving the front part of the foot on the ground and lifting the heel. www.berkeley.edu /news/berkeleyan/2001/07/11_homin.html   (618 words)

Further Evidence Against Claims of Fruitarian Evolution Unfortunately for the proponents of fruitarian evolution theories, there is evidence that we did not evolve as pure fruitarians, over and above the extensive fossil record evidence of human consumption of animal foods (fauna). First, humans are fully upright and bipedal, while apes are quadrupedal (though chimps, bonobos, and gorillas, of course, do have limited bipedal abilities). Needless to say, a fruitarian ape needs quadrupedal abilities for harvesting fruit from tall trees, and the lack thereof (in humans) suggests that harvesting fruit was much less important than the fruitarian evolution advocates claim. www.beyondveg.com /billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-4d.shtml   (2242 words)

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