Mechanical evidence that flamingos can support their body on one leg with little active muscular force.

ABSTRACT: Flamingos (Phoenicopteridae) often stand and sleep on one leg for long periods, but it is unknown how much active muscle contractile force they use for the mechanical demands of standing on one leg: body weight support and maintaining balance. First, we demonstrated that flamingo cadavers could passively support body weight on one leg without any muscle activity while adopting a stable, unchanging, joint posture resembling that seen in live flamingos. By contrast, the cadaveric flamingo could not be stably held in a two-legged pose, suggesting a greater necessity for active muscle force to stabilize two-legged versus one-legged postures. Our results suggest that flamingos engage a passively engaged gravitational stay apparatus (proximally located) for weight support during one-legge

SUBMITTER: Chang YH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5454233 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature