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posted by martyb on Sunday January 20 2019, @05:18AM   Printer-friendly
from the gaited-community? dept.

RoboFossil Reveals Locomotion of Beast from Deep Time

Some 290 million years ago a four-legged, plant-eating creature the size of large dog roamed what is now central Germany. It did not carry itself like most other tetrapods known from that time, belly low to the ground and limbs splayed out to the sides; instead it walked taller, tucking its limbs under its body for a more erect posture. That is the portrait emerging from a new multidisciplinary study that has reconstructed the locomotion of this long-extinct animal, called Orobates pabsti—in part by developing a robot version of the beast to test the physics of various gaits. And it adds to a growing body of evidence that the textbook account of when and how four-limbed animals conquered terra firma needs revision.

Interactive demo.

Reverse-engineering the locomotion of a stem amniote (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0851-2) (DX)


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @10:21AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @10:21AM (#788997)

    Mimicking something that didn't work does not seem like a very good idea.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @11:45AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @11:45AM (#789003)

      The bright side is that you can't fail anyway.

  • (Score: 2) by stretch611 on Sunday January 20 2019, @09:11PM

    by stretch611 (6199) on Sunday January 20 2019, @09:11PM (#789134)

    You would think Germans would think of a better beer to name things after other than Pabst [pabstblueribbon.com].

    --
    Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
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