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jerboa
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- Creator:
- Moore, Talia Y, Villacis Nunez, C Nathaly, Ray, Andrew P, and Cooper, Kimberly L
- Description:
- Hind limbs can undergo dramatic changes in loading conditions during the transition from quadrupedal to bipedal locomotion. For example, the most early diverging bipedal jerboas (Rodentia: Dipodidae) are some of the smallest mammals in the world, with body masses that range 2-4 grams. The larger jerboa species exhibit developmental and evolutionary fusion of the central three metatarsals into a single cannon bone. We hypothesize that body size reduction and metatarsal fusion are mechanisms to maintain the safety factor of the hind limb bones despite the higher ground reaction forces associated with bipedal locomotion. Using finite element analysis to model collisions between the substrate and the metatarsals, we found that body size reduction was insufficient to reduce bone stress on unfused metatarsals, based on the scaled dynamics of larger jerboas, and that fused bones developed lower stresses than unfused bones when all metatarsals are scaled to the same size and loading conditions. Based on these results, we conclude that fusion reinforces larger jerboa metatarsals against high ground reaction forces. Because smaller jerboas with unfused metatarsals develop higher peak stresses in response to loading conditions scaled from larger jerboas, we hypothesize that smaller jerboas use alternative dynamics of bipedal locomotion that reduces the impact of collisions between the foot and substrate.
- Keyword:
- finite element, functional morphology, bipedal, jerboa, metatarsus, and bone fusion
- Citation to related publication:
- Villacis Nunez, Ray, Cooper, Moore (submitted). Body size reduction and metatarsal fusion were distinct mechanisms to resist bending as jerboas (Dipodidae) transitioned from quadrupedal to bipedal.
- Discipline:
- Science and Engineering
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- Creator:
- Ding, J, Moore, TY, and Gan, Z
- Description:
- Jerboas (Jaculus jaculus) are bipedal hopping rodents that frequently transition between gaits (running, hopping, and skipping) throughout their entire speed range. It has been hypothesized that these non-cursorial bipedal gait transitions are likely to enhance their maneuverability and predator evasion ability. However, it is difficult to use the underlying dynamics of these locomotion patterns to predict gait transitions due to the large number of degrees of freedom expressed by the animals. To this end, we used empirical jerboa kinematics and dynamics to develop a unified Spring Loaded Inverted Pendulum model with defined passive swing leg motions. The simulated trajectories from the model precisely matched the experimental data. Jerboas were observed to apply different neutral swing leg angles during locomotion. By investigating the gait structure of the model with coupled and uncoupled neutral swing leg, we found two set of mechanism may explain the frequent gait transitions of jerboas.
- Keyword:
- jerboa, legged locomotion, gait transition, Legged Robots, Dynamics, Bipedal locomotion, and Non-cursorial locomotion
- Citation to related publication:
- Ding, Moore, Gan (submitted) A template model explains jerboa gait transitions across a broad range of speeds. Frontiers in Bioengineering And Biotechnology
- Discipline:
- Science and Engineering