The movements of limb segments and joints during locomotion in African and Asian elephants

Abstract

There was an error published in J. Exp. Biol. 211, 2735-2751 On p. 2740, in the section entitled 'Limb motion during normal walking', a character was missing in the second sentence such that the degree of incline of the forearm, forefoot and thigh segments at mid-stance was incorrectly given as 411 deg. rather than 4-11 deg. The text should have read:'At mid-stance, the forearm, forefoot and thigh segments were all relatively vertical (within 4-11 deg.), whereas the upper arm, shank and hindfoot segments were less vertically inclined (-19, -23 and 38 deg. to vertical, respectively).'We apologise to authors and readers for this error.

Asya Filinin (Elephas maximus) Yürüme Biyomekanik Parametreleri

“…The stride length of each limb was approximately 200 cm, ranging from 192.6 to 198.9 cm, with no significant difference between the fore and hindlimb on each side at a comfortable walking speed of average 1.1 ms -1 . This may confirm that elephants walk with a lateral sequence footfall pattern, and distribute their center of mass proportionally across all four limbs, as reported in previous studies [5][6][7]16] . It was somewhat surprising that in this study the average stride length on the right side was significantly longer than that on the left (P<0.05 for both fore limbs and hind limbs).…”

“…Analysis of elephant locomotion is limited, however, the studies of Hutchinson et al [6] , Ren et al [16] , and Genin et al [5] clarified the locomotor kinetic and kinematic characteristics of Asian elephants. They revealed that elephants, as with other quadrupeds, use a lateral sequence footfall pattern during walking to achieve the objectives of effective energy expenditure and minimal muscular work [5,6,16] .…”

“…They revealed that elephants, as with other quadrupeds, use a lateral sequence footfall pattern during walking to achieve the objectives of effective energy expenditure and minimal muscular work [5,6,16] . The temporospatial parameters reported in this study were consistent with those found in previous literature, even though all of the subjects were riding elephants guided by their own mahout and trained to work in tourism activities.…”

Independent evolution of knuckle-walking in African apes shows that humans did not evolve from a knuckle-walking ancestor

“…3). Animals using a relatively columnar wrist and hand posture would have carpal joints that are in line with the hand and forearm, similar to limb joint position in large graviportal animals such as elephants (43). Supporting loads directly over more vertically-oriented forelimb joints during support phase explains the absence of posited bony adaptations to bending loads in gorillas and also permits more mobility at the joint (43).…”

Kinematics and Ground Reaction Force Determination: A Demonstration Quantifying Locomotor Abilities of Young Adult, Middle-aged, and Geriatric Rats

“…In fact, kinematics, ground reaction force determination, or both have been used in a variety of species such as elephants [33][34][35] , cattle 36 , horses [37][38][39][40] , dogs 4,[41][42][43][44][45] , cats 21,[46][47][48][49] , various rodents 3,8,50,51 , birds 4,[52][53][54][55] , and fish 56,57 (this list is by no means exhaustive). In the authors' experience, however, the use of mice is problematic given that mice are not easy to operantly condition to travel along a runway.…”