Early humans may have first walked upright in the trees
Human bipedalism—walking upright on two legs—may have evolved in trees, and not on the ground as previously thought, according to a new study involving UCL researchers.
Human bipedalism—walking upright on two legs—may have evolved in trees, and not on the ground as previously thought, according to a new study involving UCL researchers.
Plants & Animals
Dec 14, 2022
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The acquisition of bipedalism is considered to be a decisive step in human evolution. Nevertheless, there is no consensus on its modalities and age, notably due to the lack of fossil remains. A research team, involving researchers ...
Evolution
Aug 24, 2022
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204
In 2018, the little skate, a ray-like fish the size of a skillet caused a big wave in evolutionary biology. Researchers from New York University found that little skates, which scuttle along the sea floor on two leg-like ...
Evolution
Mar 18, 2021
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1867
Dartmouth researchers investigate tree-climbing behavior of modern hunter-gatherers to elucidate our fossil ancestors' terrestrial versus arboreal preferences.
Archaeology
Dec 31, 2012
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A fossilized foot bone recovered from Hadar, Ethiopia, shows that by 3.2 million years ago human ancestors walked bipedally with a modern human-like foot, a report that appears Feb. 11 in the journal Science, concludes. The ...
Archaeology
Feb 10, 2011
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Among the many surprises associated with the discovery of the oldest known, nearly complete skeleton of a hominid is the finding that this species took its first steps toward bipedalism not on the open, grassy savanna, as ...
Archaeology
Oct 8, 2009
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A detailed examination of the wrist bones of several primate species challenges the notion that humans evolved their two-legged upright walking style from a knuckle-walking ancestor.
Evolution
Aug 10, 2009
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Massive predators like Albertosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex may have been at the top of the food chain, but they were not the only meat-eating dinosaurs to roam North America, according to Canadian researchers who have discovered ...
Archaeology
Mar 16, 2009
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Foot bones that are separate in small hopping rodents are fused in their larger cousins, and a team of researchers at the University of Michigan and University of California, San Diego wanted to know why.
Plants & Animals
Oct 17, 2022
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278
Near an old mining town in Central Europe, known for its picturesque turquoise-blue quarry water, lay Rudapithecus. For 10 million years, the fossilized ape waited in Rudabánya, Hungary, to add its story to the origins of ...
Archaeology
Sep 17, 2019
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Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an organism moves by means of its two rear limbs, or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped ( /ˈbaɪpɛd/), meaning "two feet" (from the Latin bi for "two" and ped for "foot"). Types of bipedal movement include walking, running, or hopping, on two appendages (typically legs).
Relatively few modern species are habitual bipeds whose normal method of locomotion is two-legged. Within mammals, habitual bipedalism has evolved six times, with the macropods, kangaroo mice, dipodids, springhare , pangolins and homininan apes. In the Triassic period some groups of archosaurs (a group that includes the ancestors of crocodiles) developed bipedalism; among their descendants the dinosaurs all the early forms and many later groups were habitual or exclusive bipeds; the birds descended from one group of exclusively bipedal dinosaurs.
A larger number of modern species are capable of bipedal movement for a short time in exceptional circumstances. Several non-archosaurian lizard species move bipedally when running, usually to escape from threats. Many animals rear up on their hind legs whilst fighting or copulating. A few animals commonly stand on their hind legs, in order to reach food, to keep watch, to threaten a competitor or predator, or to pose in courtship, but do not move bipedally.
There are two main types of bipedal locomotion: macropods, some smaller birds[citation needed], and heteromyid rodents move by hopping on both legs simultaneously; other groups, including apes and larger birds, walk or run by moving one leg at a time.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA