Tiger Salamanders (Ambystoma tigrinum) Increase Foot Contact Surface Area on Challenging Substrates During Terrestrial Locomotion.

ABSTRACT: Animals live in heterogeneous environments must navigate in order to forage or capture food, defend territories, and locate mates. These heterogeneous environments have a variety of substrates that differ in their roughness, texture, and other properties, all of which may alter locomotor performance. Despite such natural variation in substrate, many studies on locomotion use noncompliant surfaces that either are unrepresentative of the range of substrates experienced by species or underestimate maximal locomotor capabilities. The goal of this study was to determine the role of forefeet and hindfeet on substrates with different properties during walking in a generalized sprawling tetrapod, the tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum). Adult salamanders (n = 4, SVL = 11.2-14.6 cm)

SUBMITTER: Vega CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7794020 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature