Inner workings of the alligator ankle reveal the mechanistic origins of archosaur locomotor diversity.

ABSTRACT: Major transformations in the locomotor system of archosaurs (a major clade of reptiles including birds, crocodiles, dinosaurs, and pterosaurs) were accompanied by significant modifications to ankle anatomy. How the evolution of such a complex multi-joint structure is related to shifts in ankle function and locomotor diversity across this clade remains unclear and weakly grounded in extant experimental data. Here, we used X-ray Reconstruction of Moving Morphology to reconstruct skeletal motion and quantify the sources of three-dimensional ankle mobility in the American alligator, a species that retains the ancestral archosaur ankle structure. We then applied the observed relationships between joint excursion and locomotor behaviors to predict ankle function in extinct archosaurs. High-resol

SUBMITTER: Turner ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10008286 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature