Forces Acting on the Foot of the American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) During Pedal Anchoring
Collin Walter, Jamie Carroll, Michael Cramberg, Jeremy J. Houser, Debra Loguda-Summers, Bruce A. Young · 2024
Read Forces Acting on the Foot of the American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) During Pedal Anchoring by Collin Walter, Jamie Carroll, Michael Cramberg, Jeremy J. Houser, Debra Loguda-Summers, Bruce A. Young (2024) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-11673831.txt.
Description
Collin Walter and co-authors measure forces in alligator feet in this 2024 study. Alligators can anchor a foot in mud to hold position, a move called pedal anchoring. The team asked what forces act on the foot during anchoring, and whether the foot's own small muscles must work to make the anchor hold.
They built copy feet fitted with strain gauges and dragged them through mud, copying both walking and anchoring. The copy tracks matched tracks from live alligators, and anchoring tracks differed clearly from walking tracks. Forces also differed by spot on the foot and by motion. Feet that could not bend at the toe joints made poor tracks, which shows the muscles must flex the toes: anchoring is an active act.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Collin Walter, Jamie Carroll, Michael Cramberg, Jeremy J. Houser, Debra Loguda-Summers, Bruce A. Young |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2024 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 27 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |