Digitigrade and unguligrade animals have relatively long carpals and tarsals, and the bones which would correspond to the human ankle are thus set much higher in the limb than in a human. In a digitigrade animal, this effectively lengthens the foot, so much so that what are often thought of as a digitigrade animal's "hands" and "feet" correspond only to what would be the bones of the human finger or toe. Humans usually walk with the soles of their feet on the ground, in plantigrade locomotion. In contrast, digitigrade animals walk on their distal and intermediate phalanges.
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This means the weight of the body is placed on the heel of the foot, giving it strength and stability. Most mammals, such as cats and dogs are digitigrade, walking on their toes, giving them what many people mistake as a “backward knee”, which is really their ankle. The extension of the joint helps store momentum and acts as a spring, allowing digitigrade creatures more speed. Digitigrade mammals are also often adept at quiet movement.
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Digitigrade locomotion is responsible for the distinctive hooked shape of dog legs. Unguligrade animals, such as horses and cattle, walk only on the distal-most tips of their digits, while in digitigrade animals, more than one segment of the digit makes contact with the ground, either directly (as in birds) or via paw-pads (as in dogs).
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A digitigrade () is an animal that stands or walks on its digits, or toes. Digitigrades include walking birds (what many assume to be bird knees are actually ankles), cats, dogs, and many other mammals, but not plantigrades or unguligrades. Digitigrades generally move more quickly and quietly than other animals. There are anatomical differences between the limbs of plantigrades, like humans, and both unguligrade and digitigrade limbs.
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The leg of a digitigrade mammal also includes the metatarsals/metacarpals, the bones that in a human compose the arch of the foot and the palm of the hand. The leg of an unguligrade mammal also includes the phalanges, the finger and toe bones. Among extinct animals, most early mammals such as pantodonts were plantigrade. A plantigrade foot is the primitive condition for mammals; digitigrade and unguligrade locomotion evolved later.
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Indohyus is a genus of extinct digitigrade artiodactyl known from Eocene fossils in Asia. This small chevrotain-like animal found in the Himalayas is one of the earliest-known relative of whales.
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Sinopa rapax from Bridger Basin. Creodonts had generalized postcranial skeletons. Their limbs were mesaxonic (with the axis of the foot provided by the middle of their five digits). Their method of locomotion ranged from plantigrade to digitigrade.
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Eusauporoda are also hypothesized to have a semi-digitigrade foot posturem demonstrated by footprint evidence. Paleontologist Jeffrey Wilson explains that eusauropods differ from theropods and prosauropods that have digitigrade pes where their heel and metatarsals are lifted off the ground. Eusauropods show asymmetry in their metatarsal shaft diameters where metatarsal I is broader than the others, suggesting that their weight was mostly assumed by their inner feet. According to Steven Salisbury and Jay Nair, basal eusauropods retain four pedal unguals but reduce their phalangeal number in their fourth digit to three units.
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In digitigrade and unguligrade animals, the metacarpals are greatly extended and strengthened, forming an additional segment to the limb, a feature that typically enhances the animal's speed. In both birds and bats, the metacarpals form part of the wing.
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Paul Sereno et al. (2013) observed that the lower jaw had a mid-mandibular joint. It ran digitigrade, and upright on its hind legs. The femur of the holotype specimen PVSJ 512 is , and the tibia is , suggesting that it was a fast runner.
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Iguanodontians are a diverse but morphologically tight knit array of genera known from fossils of the late Cretaceous. Significant modifications include the evolution of tooth batteries, a ligament-bound metacarpus and a digitigrade hand posture. Tenontosaurus is the most basal iguanodontian. Others include Iguanodon, Camptosaurus and Muttaburrasaurus.
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Dinaelurus had a skull extremely broad for its length and had conical teeth; it could exhibit little or no development of sabertooth features and had more rounded cheek teeth with no serrated ridges. It had a relatively gracile skeleton. Martin hypothesizes that it had digitigrade feet.Martin 1998, p. 228.
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A paw is the soft foot of a mammal, generally a quadruped, that has claws or nails (e.g., a cat or dog's paw). A hard foot is called a hoof. Depending on style of locomotion, animals can be classified as plantigrade (sole walking), digitigrade (toe walking), or unguligrade (nail walking).
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Manus and pes range from plantigrade to digitigrade. The fibula articulates with the calcaneum, while the astragalar-cuboid articulation is reduced or absent. Terminal phalanges are compressed and fissured at the tip. The limnocyonids had the following features according to Gunnell: M3/m3 were reduced or absent, other teeth were unreduced.
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The digitigrade stilt is a peg stilt whose line follows the foot and not the shin bone. This allows costumers to mimic the walk of an animal. Because of the extreme stresses on this type of design they tend to be more rare; that is, fewer successful home-made designs.
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Birds are generally digitigrade animals (toe-walkers), which affects the structure of their leg skeleton. They use only their hindlimbs to walk (bipedalism). Their forelimbs evolved to become wings. Most bones of the avian foot (excluding toes) are fused together or with other bones, having changed their function over time.
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Running gait. Photographs by Eadweard Muybridge, 1887. Most vertebrates—the amphibians, the reptiles and some mammals such as humans and bears—are plantigrade, walking on the whole of the underside of the foot. Many mammals, such as cats and dogs, are digitigrade, walking on their toes, the greater stride length allowing more speed.
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The fourth digit is the longest, and only slightly longer than the second digit. Likewise, the fifth digit is only slightly longer than the second. The palms are long and leathery, and like other primates, they have dermal ridges to improve grip. The feet are semi-digitigrade and more specialized than the hands.
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Viverrina species have a robust body. There is a deep pouch for secreting in the form of a deep cavity on each side of the anus. The back of the hind feet is hairy except the pad of the toes and the metatarsus. The digitigrade feet are adapted for movement on the ground.
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Rhesus macaques are diurnal animals, and both arboreal and terrestrial. They are quadrupedal and, when on the ground, they walk digitigrade and plantigrade. They are mostly herbivorous, feeding mainly on fruit, but also eating seeds, roots, buds, bark, and cereals. They are estimated to consume around 99 different plant species in 46 families.
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In 1961, paleontologist L. Ginsburg concluded that Sansanosmilus was possessed of a plantigrade walking stance, after studying its foot bones and comparing it with those of the true felid Pseudaelurus from the same site. This is different from later barbourofelids, which are believed to have had semi- plantigrade or semi-digitigrade stances.
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Digitigrade mammals are also often adept at quiet movement. Some animals such as horses are unguligrade, walking on the tips of their toes. This even further increases their stride length and thus their speed. A few mammals, namely the great apes, are also known to walk on their knuckles, at least for their front legs.
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The black, crescent-like ears can be closed to prevent the entry of dirt and debris while digging. The tail is used to balance when standing upright. Digitigrade, the meerkat has four digits on each foot with thick pads underneath. The meerkat has a specialised thermoregulation system that helps it survive in its harsh desert habitat.
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They also developed a digitigrade posture in the hindlimbs, in which the heel and proximal metatarsals were raised completely off the ground. The foot also became more spread out, with the ends of the metatarsals no longer in contact with each other. These developments have been used to distinguish a new clade among sauropods, termed Eusauropoda.Rogers, et al.
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Mandrills are mostly terrestrial but they are more arboreal than baboons and feed as high as the canopy. When on the ground, mandrills walk by digitigrade quadrupedalism (walking on the toes of all four limbs). When in the trees, they often move by lateral jumps. Mandrills are mostly diurnal, with activities extending from morning to evening.
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Their skulls superficially resemble those of large canids, but are much larger and heavier, with shorter facial portions. Hyenas are digitigrade, with the fore and hind paws having four digits each and sporting bulging pawpads. Like canids, hyenas have short, blunt, non-retractable claws. Their pelage is sparse and coarse with poorly developed or absent underfur.
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Zalambdaltestids were insectivores, having zalambdodont molars much as various modern insectivorous species. They are uniquely suited to a saltitorial, cursorial lifestyle, bearing long, semi- digitigrade limbs and a spinal column similar to that of modern lagomorphs. Like most non-placental mammals, the presence of epipubic bones probably meant that they gave birth to poorly developed young much like modern marsupials and monotremes.
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African jacana. Extremely long toes and claws help distribute the jacana's weight over a wide area to allow it to walk on floating leaves. The anatomy of bird legs and feet is diverse, encompassing many accommodations to perform a wide variety of functions. Most birds are classified as digitigrade animals, meaning they walk on their toes, rather than the entire foot.
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Birds are also digitigrade. Hooved mammals are known as ungulates, walking on the fused tips of their fingers and toes. This can vary from odd-toed ungulates, such as horses, pigs, and a few wild African ungulates, to even-toed ungulates, such as cows, deer, and goats. Mammals whose limbs have adapted to grab objects have what are called prehensile limbs.
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The Raoellidae, previously grouped within Helohyidae, are an extinct family of semiaquatic digitigrade artiodactyls in the clade Whippomorpha. Fossils of raoellids are found in Eocene strata of South and Southeast Asia. An exceptionally complete skeleton of Indohyus from Kashmir suggests that raoellids are the "missing link" sister group to whales (Cetacea). All other Artiodactyla are relatives of these two groups.
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In carnivorans the carnassial pair is made up by the fourth upper premolar and the first lower molar teeth. There is variation among the carnassial pair depending on the family. Some species are cursorial and the foot posture in terrestrial species is either digitigrade or plantigrade. In pinnipeds the feet have become flippers where the locomotion is unique in each of the pinniped families.
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In terrestrial carnivorans the feet have soft pads. The feet can either be digitigrade seen in cats, hyenas and dogs or plantigrade seen in bears, skunks, raccoons, weasels, civets and mongooses. In pinnipeds the limbs have been modified into flippers. Unlike other marine mammals, such as cetaceans and sirenians which have fully functional tails to help them swim, pinnipeds use their limbs underwater for locomotion.
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In general, a Vortigaunt is a somewhat humanoid figure with two legs and two arms, but has an additional arm protruding from its thorax. Vortigaunts have mottled green skin and digitigrade legs, allowing them to move quickly. Typically, Vortigaunts have a slightly hunched posture. In addition, Vortigaunts have sharp teeth, clawed hands, strong senses, and their faces are dominated by a large red eye.
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It was a small digitigrade mammal, with brachyodont and lophobunodont teeth, teeth that have a combination of ridges (lophodont dentition) and cones (bunodont dentition). It had a generalized way of locomotion, that means, it could move easily in any terrain, but probably it preferred the safety of the forest trees where it lived. Although being an ungulate, Allalmeia had claws as the oldest mammals.
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They are similar to the original description with some degree of semiplantigradism. However, several other footprints may indicate a more digitigrade stance. Such is the case the footprints from the Cantwell Formation labelled under the numbers DMNH 2010-07-01, 2013-08-04, 2013-08-06 and 2014-11-05. These impressions are composed by four toes with the first digit slightly smaller than the others which is attributed to therizinosaurids.
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The cat is digitigrade. It walks on the toes, with the bones of the feet making up the lower part of the visible leg. Unlike most mammals, it uses a "pacing" gait and moves both legs on one side of the body before the legs on the other side. It registers directly by placing each hind paw close to the track of the corresponding fore paw, minimizing noise and visible tracks.
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Hemicyon was about long, and tall, with somewhat tiger-like proportions and carnassal blades on its teeth for cutting meat. Hemicyon is widely accepted to have been hypercarnivorous and highly predaceous. Unlike modern bears, Hemicyon walked on its toes; it was not plantigrade, but digitigrade, with long metapodials. This suggests that Hemicyon must have been an active hunter and a good runner, and presumably hunted by pursuing prey on open ground.
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Each toe bears a large, robust nail which is somewhat flattened and shovel-like, and appears to be intermediate between a claw and a hoof. Whereas the aardvark is considered digitigrade, it appears at time to be plantigrade. This confusion happens because when it squats it stands on its soles. A contributing characteristic to the burrow digging capabilities of aardvarks is an endosteal tissue called compacted coarse cancellous bone (CCCB).
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One human gave an apt description of Kzin as "eight feet of death". Unlike some popularly depicted anthropomorphic animals, Kzinti stand on two legs like humans do; they do not have digitigrade or "backward-bending" legs. Their hands end in three fingers and an opposable thumb, all with retractable claws. Kzinti are covered with a thick coat of long fur that comes in various combinations of orange, yellow, and black.
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Dog knee Like most predatory mammals, the dog has powerful muscles, a cardiovascular system that supports both sprinting and endurance and teeth for catching, holding, and tearing. The dog's muscles provides the ability to jump and leap. Their legs can propel them forward rapidly, leaping as necessary to chase and overcome prey. They have small, tight feet, walking on their toes (thus having a digitigrade stance and locomotion).
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Most birds, except loons and grebes, are digitigrade, not plantigrade. Also, chicks in the nest can use the entire foot (toes and tarsometatarsus) with the heel on the ground. Loons tend to walk this way because their legs and pelvis are highly specialized for swimming. They have a narrow pelvis, which moves the attachment point of the femur to the rear, and their tibiotarsus is much longer than the femur.
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In the long-footed mammals, both the hoofed species (unguligrade) and the clawed forms which walk on the toes (digitigrade), the heel is well above the ground at the apex of the angular joint known as the hock. In plantigrade species it rests on the ground. In birds, the heel is the backward-pointing joint which is often mistaken as the "knee" (the actual knee of birds is hidden under the plumage).
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The hind limbs were held under the body, with slightly flexed knees and ankles, and the foot was digitigrade, meaning the animal walked on its toes. The proportionally long lower leg and metatarsus show that Plateosaurus could run quickly on its hind limbs. The tail of Plateosaurus was typically dinosaurian, muscular and with high mobility. P. engelhardti skull cast, alt=Side view of a skull and the anterior part of the neck.
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The dromedary is a digitigrade animal; it walks on its toes, which are known as digits. It lacks the second and fifth digits. The front feet are wide and long; they are larger than the hind feet, which measure wide and long. The skull displayed at museum Fragonard of National Veterinarian High School of Alfort, Maisons-Alfort, Val-de-Marne, France The dromedary has 22 milk teeth, which are eventually replaced by 34 permanent teeth.
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In case of anime series Zoids, the machines resemble dinosaurs and animals, and have been shown to evolve from native metallic organisms. A chicken walker is a fictional type of bipedal robot or mecha, distinguished by its rear-facing knee joint. This type of articulation resembles a bird's legs, hence the name. However, birds actually have forward- facing knees; they are digitigrade, and what most call the "knee" is actually the ankle.
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Foxes are generally smaller than some other members of the family Canidae such as wolves and jackals, while they may be larger than some within the family, such as Raccoon dogs. In the largest species, the red fox, males weigh on average between , while the smallest species, the fennec fox, weighs just . Foxy features typically include a triangular face, pointed ears, an elongated rostrum, and a bushy tail. Foxes are digitigrade; they walk on their toes.
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Basal sauropods also tend to have three carpal bones, but they are more block-like than in earlier forms. Neosauropods further reduce this number to two, and in some cases even fewer. The metacarpals of neosauropods are bound together, allowing a digitigrade posture with the manus raised up off the ground. Prosauropods and basal sauropods have metacarpals which are articulated at the base, but this is further developed in neosauropods such that the articulation continues down the shafts.
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Predator films, though the hands were made bulkier in order to make the Aliens seem more formidable against the Predators. Aliens have been alternatively portrayed as both plantigrade and digitigrade organisms, usually relative to their host. Human-spawned Aliens were usually portrayed as having humanoid hind limbs, while in Alien 3, the featured Alien sported double-jointed legs due to its quadrupedal host. This characteristic would be continued in Alien: Resurrection for the human-spawned Aliens.
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Proboscideans experienced several evolutionary trends, such as an increase in size, which led to many giant species that stood up to tall. As with other megaherbivores, including the extinct sauropod dinosaurs, the large size of elephants likely developed to allow them to survive on vegetation with low nutritional value. Their limbs grew longer and the feet shorter and broader. The feet were originally plantigrade and developed into a digitigrade stance with cushion pads and the sesamoid bone providing support.
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The pakicetids were digitigrade hoofed mammals that are thought to be the earliest known cetaceans, with Indohyus being the closest sister group. They lived in the early Eocene, around 50 million years ago. Their fossils were first discovered in North Pakistan in 1979, located at a river not far from the shores of the former Tethys Sea. After the initial discovery, more fossils were found, mainly in the early Eocene fluvial deposits in northern Pakistan and northwestern India.
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Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 12(3):303-322 that lived during the Miocene, of which there were at least three species spread across Europe, Africa, and Asia. Closely related to other large African creodonts such as Simbakubwa and Megistotherium, Hyainailurus walked with a semi-digitigrade stance and was probably capable of large, leaping bounds. Alongside its African relatives and the last members of the genus Hyaenodon from Asia, Hyainailurus was among the largest creodonts that existed.
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Early mesonychids probably walked on the flats of their feet (plantigrade), while later ones walked on their toes (digitigrade). These later mesonychids had hooves, one on each toe, with four toes on each foot. The foot was compressed for efficient running with the axis between the third and fourth toes (paraxonic); it would have looked something like a hoofed paw. Mesonychids varied in size; some species were as small as a fox, others as large as a horse.
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Jacobs, Louis L. Jacobs; Scott, Kathleen Marie: Evolution of Tertiary Mammals of North America: Terrestrial carnivores, Cambridge University Press, 1998 Early amphicyonids, such as Daphoenodon, possessed a digitigrade posture and locomotion (walking on their toes), while many of the later and larger species were plantigrade or semiplantigrade.Wang, Xiaoming and Tedford, Richard H. Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. p10-11, 29 The amphicyonids were obligate carnivores, unlike the Canidae, which are hypercarnivores or mesocarnivores.
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Scaly-tailed squirrels and flying squirrels, although not closely related, can both glide from tree to tree using parachute-like membranes that stretch from the fore to the hind limbs. The agouti is fleet-footed and antelope-like, being digitigrade and having hoof-like nails. The majority of rodents have tails, which can be of many shapes and sizes. Some tails are prehensile, as in the Eurasian harvest mouse, and the fur on the tails can vary from bushy to completely bald.
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However, fossil records are still too incomplete for any conclusion. The fossil record of D. europaeus is fragmentary; remains in Cernay, France, include a mandible, a complete radius, and fragments of a humerus. A morphological study of these bones suggests this animal was digitigrade and more cursorial than is usually assumed for the genus. Analysis of the elbow joint shows it was specialized for extra flexion and extension, an adaptation usually found in running species; the amount of specialization is unusual for a Paleocene mammal.
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According to the two authors, Togocetus was a semiaquatic animal which must have weighed around . It was a protocetid with rather primitive traits such as a still quite long neck, a digitigrade manus and a swim-specialized pes.Gingerich & Cappetta 2014, p. 109 It shared many similarities with the protocetid genera Protocetus and Pappocetus, the main differences being a smaller mandibular canal, the loss of the fovea capitis femoris (hence of the ligament of head of femur) and some traits related to the molar trigonids.
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It uses its tail to assist balance and has semi-retractable claws that it uses to climb trees in its search for prey. It has semiplantigrade feet, switching between a plantigrade- like gait (when arboreal) and a digitigrade-like one (when terrestrial). The soles of its paws are nearly bare and covered with strong pads. The fossa has very flexible ankles that allow it to readily grasp tree trunks so as to climb up or down trees head first or to leap to another tree.
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The T'au evolved as hunter-gatherers in the arid plains and desert environments of their homeworld, T'au, though they eventually spread to all ecological regions of the planet. As a result, they have tough, leathery blue-grey skin, which exudes no moisture. With an average height of 5'5, they have a humanoid body plan, though unlike humans they possess digitigrade legs which end in cloven hooves. The T'au have flat, nose-less faces, with their olfactory organs located inside of their mouths to preserve moisture.
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It is known from a nearly complete holotype skeleton as well as a referred skull. The holotype skeleton had an estimated length of 1.2 meters (4 feet), while the referred skull was 17% larger than that of the holotype. Trucidocynodon is considered one of the largest known carnivorous cynodonts from the Triassic, as well as one of the largest probainognathians in the entire Mesozoic. A biomechanical study has argued that Trucidocynodon not only had erect limbs, but that it also possibly had digitigrade forelimbs, being among the first synapsids to show adaptations for cursoriality.
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Tatopoulos subsequently reimagined the creature as a lean, digitigrade bipedal, iguana-like creature that stood with its back and tail parallel to the ground, rendered via CGI. Several scenes had the monster portrayed by stuntmen in suits. The suits were similar to those used in the Toho films, with the actors' heads being located in the monster's neck region, and the facial movements controlled via animatronics. However, because of the creature's horizontal posture, the stuntmen had to wear metal leg extenders, which allowed them to stand off the ground with their feet bent forward.
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The Protoss are tall and muscular humanoids, with two luminous eyes, typically gold, green, or blue. With two fingers flanked by two opposable thumbs on each hand, two large toes on each foot (four small toes in earlier games), digitigrade legs, broad chests and shoulders with narrow waists, the Protoss are very agile and physically strong. A bony crest extends back from the crown of the head, with long neural strands sprouting from the back of the head. These strands facilitate the basic psychic communal link all Protoss naturally share.
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The name "Weta Legs" is Weta Workshop's name for a "low profile, professional grade reverse leg stilt" developed by Kim Graham and Weta technicians and manufactured by Performing Legs Ltd. Designed and largely hand-madeWeta Legs reviewed by Softpedia.com by their sculptor-designer, Kim Graham, these digitigrade leg extensions are intended for "creature and costume performances in movies, television, theatre, circus, street performances and other creative performances." Originally reserved for "commercial film and television projects", Weta brought them to market – in relatively limited quantities – for online purchase by members of the public in 2010.
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With the ability to take extra prosthetics such as layers of fur or skin "to resemble a digitigrade leg, from canine and feline to fantastical demons, dragons, satyrs and even robots", these devices are promoted as being easy to get used to, partly because they "allow for realistic and natural movement as they are jointed at the knee and the ankle." Citing low pre-order numbers, Weta unceremoniously canceled the commercial production of Weta Legs by informing those who did pre-order by email. The Weta Legs page has since been removed from Weta's website.
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Diagram showing the location of the hock. The hock, or gambrel, is the joint between the tarsal bones and tibia of a digitigrade or unguligrade quadrupedal mammal, such as a horse, cat, or dog. This joint may include articulations between tarsal bones and the fibula in some species (such as cats), while in others the fibula has been greatly reduced and is only found as a vestigial remnant fused to the distal portion of the tibia (as in horses). It is the anatomical homologue of the ankle of the human foot.
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The fossils of Simbakubwa were first discovered by rural Kenyans at Meswa Bridge, Western Kenya thereafter Matthew Borths and Nancy Stevens published the findings after examining the fossils which had been stored at the Nairobi National Museum in Kenya for decades. The type specimen consists of a mandible from the lower jaw, a right upper maxilla and some postcranial remains. The light wear patterns on the dentition indicate that the holotype specimen was a young adult at the time of its death. The study of the postcranial remains indicates Simbakubwa was possessed of a semi-digitigrade walking stance.
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Portion of a human skeleton, showing plantigrade habit In terrestrial animals, plantigrade locomotion means walking with the toes and metatarsals flat on the ground. It is one of three forms of locomotion adopted by terrestrial mammals. The other options are digitigrade, walking on the toes with the heel and wrist permanently raised, and ungulates, walking on the nail or nails of the toes (the hoof) with the heel/wrist and the digits permanently raised. The leg of a plantigrade mammal includes the bones of the upper leg (femur/humerus) and lower leg (tibia and fibula/radius and ulna).
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The design and art direction for Lucario was provided by Ken Sugimori, a friend of the creator of the Pokémon games, Satoshi Tajiri. The species made its first non cameo appearance in the animated film Pokémon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew, released in Japan in 2005. In an interview, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl director Junichi Masuda noted Lucario's name as one of the most difficult to create, due to an effort to make it appealing to both Japanese and American audiences. Lucario is a canid-like Pokémon that is a bipedal digitigrade with finger-like digits on its forepaws.
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This younger, active dog's dewclaw always makes contact while running, so it wears down naturally to its proper length, as do its other claws. Double dewclaws on rear leg of dog A dewclaw is a digit – vestigial in some animals – on the foot of many mammals, birds, and reptiles (including some extinct orders, like certain theropods). It commonly grows higher on the leg than the rest of the foot, such that in digitigrade or unguligrade species it does not make contact with the ground when the animal is standing. The name refers to the dewclaw's alleged tendency to brush dew away from the grass.
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Dog paw The paw of the dog has a digitigrade orientation. The vertical columnar orientation of the proximal bones of the limbs, which articulate with distal foot structures that are arranged in quasi-vertical columnar orientation, is well-aligned to transmit loadings during weight-bearing contact of the skeleton with the ground. The angled orientation of the elongated metatarsal and the digits extends the area available for storing and releasing mechanical energy in the muscle tendon units originating proximally to the ankle joint and terminating at the distal aspect of the foot bones. When muscle tendon units lengthen, the load strain facilitates mechanical activity.
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The paw is characterised by thin, pigmented, keratinised, hairless epidermis covering subcutaneous collagenous and adipose tissue, which make up the pads. These pads act as a cushion for the load-bearing limbs of the animal. The paw consists of the large, heart-shaped metacarpal or palmar pad (forelimb) or metatarsal or plantar pad (rear limb), and generally four load-bearing digital pads, although there can be five or six toes in the case of domestic cats and bears (including giant panda). A carpal pad is also found on the forelimb which is used for additional traction when stopping or descending a slope in digitigrade species.
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The "Dog Alien" or "Ox Alien", (also known as "Runner Alien" in the expanded universe stories) and referred to in-film as "Dragon", was introduced in Alien3. The creature itself shares the same basic physical configuration and instincts as the other Aliens shown in the previous films, although there are several differences due to the host it was spawned from (a dog in the theatrical cut, an ox in the novelized version and DVD assembly cut). The dog Alien in its chestburster form is a miniature version of the adult, unlike the larval human- and Predator-spawned chestbursters. The adult is primarily quadrupedal, has digitigrade hind legs, and lacks the dorsal tubes of the human-spawned variety.
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Upper/front limbs of (top) salamander, sea turtle, crocodile, bird, (bottom) bat, whale, mole, and human The skeletons of all mammals are based on a common pentadactyl ("five- fingered") template but optimised for different functions. While many mammals can perform other tasks using their forelimbs, their primary use in most terrestrial mammals is one of three main modes of locomotion: unguligrade (hoof walkers), digitigrade (toe walkers), and plantigrade (sole walkers). Generally, the forelimbs are optimised for speed and stamina, but in some mammals some of the locomotion optimisation have been sacrificed for other functions, such as digging and grasping. In primates, the upper limbs provide a wide range of movement which increases manual dexterity.
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It is known from the type specimen, IGM 3494 (Instituto Geológico de México, of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), that comprises articulated pieces of the skeleton including the posterior part of skull, four cervical vertebrae, the scapulocoracoids, left humerus, partial right wing and right leg distal to mid tibiotarsus. This specimen is larger than D. macronyx and the well preserved foot of it shows that pterosaurs do not have a digitigrade posture in their hindlimbs, but that it have a plantigrade gait, as has been inferred from footprints. The name of the species is a homage to Dr. Robert L. Weintraub.J. M. Clark, J. A. Hopson, R. Hernández R., D. E. Fastovsky & M. Montellano (1998).
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There was a single carpal bone in the wrist, and the metacarpals were more slender than those of Diplodocus. Barosaurus feet have never been discovered, but like other sauropods, it would have been digitigrade, with all four feet each bearing five small toes. A large claw adorned the inside digit on the manus (forefoot) while smaller claws tipped the inside three digits of the pes (hindfoot). Darren Naish has noted a common error in books of the late 20th century to depict Barosaurus as a kind of brachiosaur-like short tailed dinosaur with raphes on its neck and body, and often curving the upper half of its neck downwards into a U-shape, citing it as an example of a Palaeoart meme.
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Earlier arguments for a sprawling stance include deep pelvises and features of the legs. They also suggested that the feet of multituberculates would have been plantigrade (the sole touching the ground) at rest, but digitigrade (the sole not touching the ground) when jumping and running quickly; they dismissed the idea that the forelimbs of multituberculates and other early mammals were more parasagittal than their hindlimbs. Kielan-Jaworowska and Hurum depicted Catopsbaatar with plantigrade, sprawling legs, with mobile spurs which pointed inward when preparing for attack. In 2008, Kielan-Jaworowska and Hurum suggested that the long spinous process on a Catopsbaatar vertebra and the long transverse processes in Nemegtbaatar may indicate that some multituberculates were saltatorial (had the ability to jump).
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Unlike modern crocodylians, the limbs of Terrestrisuchus were very long in proportion to the body and were held upright directly beneath it. The shape of the ankles and the bones in the hands and feet also suggest that Terrestrisuchus was digitigrade, with elongated metacarpus (wrist) and metatarsal bones that were pressed tightly together, similar to the feet of fast-running dinosaurs, suggesting that Terrestrisuchus was highly cursorial, adapted for running at high speeds. The pisiform bone in the wrist is notably smaller compared to early crocodyliforms such as Protosuchus, as well as modern crocodilians, indicating that Terrestrisuchus had less flexible wrists. Crush reconstructed Terrestrisuchus as a quadruped, with noticeably longer hind limbs than its forelimbs and its hips held high above the shoulder.
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Early to late Olenekian trackways from Poland have yielded footprints of a Lagerpeton-like quadrupedal dinosauromorph. This ichnogenus, named Prorotodactylus shares multiple synapomorphic characters with Lagerpeton including approximately parallel digits II, III and IV, fused metatarsus, digitigrade posture and reduced digits I and V. Prorotodactylus also shares the, previously autapomorphic, pes morphology of Lagerpeton. If this ichnogenus represents a close relative of Lagerpeton, it would push back the origin of this taxon to the Early Triassic; as a quadrupedal basal dinosauromorph, it also raises questions debating the theory that bipedalism is ancestral to dinosaurs. The genus Lagerpeton is currently accepted as the most basal clade within Dinosauromorpha and the sister taxon to Dinosauriformes. Presently, Lagerpeton sits within the family “Lagerpetidae”, also occupied by the more derived genus Dromomeron, known from Late Triassic rocks of the southwestern USA.
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In its "Y" form, its appearance is influenced by that of Pteranodons, with a central big pointed horn, loss of fingers passing through the patagia of the main wings that increase in size, smaller wings stemming from Pteranodon-like hands. It also gains a more slender appearance with a thinner torso, a longer tail and digitigrade feet that are longer and devoid of pads. Although categorized as a fire-flying type Pokemon by physique, by its nature or attack formations Charizard has a remarkable resemblance with an actual dragon, and with the dragon type moves skill set such as Dragon Rage, Draco Meter, Dragon Wing, Dragon Claw, Dragon Pulse etc. Charizard can be easily marked as a Fire-Flying-Dragon type Pokemon, a very rare tri variant combination, making it one of the most powerful Pokemon in the collection.
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Hemigalinae resemble the Viverrinae in having the scent glands present in both sexes and wholly perineal, but differing by their simpler structure, consisting in the male of a shallower, smaller pouch, with less tumid lips, situated midway between the scrotum and the penis, but not extending to either. In the female, the scent glands consist of a pair of swellings, each with a slit-like orifice, situated one on each side of the vulva and a little behind it and on a common eminence, the perineal area behind this eminence being naked. The prepuce is long and pendulous. The feet are nearly intermediate in structure between those of the digitigrade Viverrinae and the semiplantigrade Paradoxurinae, but more like the latter, both the carpal and metatarsal pads being well developed, double, and joining the plantar pad below, and as wide as it is at the point of contact.
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