Articular surface interactions distinguish dinosaurian locomotor joint poses.

ABSTRACT: Our knowledge of vertebrate functional evolution depends on inferences about joint function in extinct taxa. Without rigorous criteria for evaluating joint articulation, however, such analyses risk misleading reconstructions of vertebrate animal motion. Here we propose an approach for synthesizing raycast-based measurements of 3-D articular overlap, symmetry, and congruence into a quantitative "articulation score" for any non-interpenetrating six-degree-of-freedom joint configuration. We apply our methodology to bicondylar hindlimb joints of two extant dinosaurs (guineafowl, emu) and, through comparison with in vivo kinematics, find that locomotor joint poses consistently have high articulation scores. We then exploit this relationship to constrain reconstruction of a pedal walking stride

SUBMITTER: Manafzadeh AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10873393 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature