Biomechanical determinants of transverse and rotary gallop in cursorial mammals

Abstract

SUMMARYTransverse and rotary gallop differ in the placement of the leading hindfeet and forefeet: ipsilateral in the former gait, contralateral in the latter. We analysed 351 filmed sequences to assess the gallop type of 89 investigated mammalian species belonging to Carnivora, Artiodactyla and Perissodactyla orders. Twenty-three biometrical, ecological and physiological parameters were collected for each species both from literature data and from animal specimens. Most of the species showed only one kind of gallop: transverse (42%) or rotary (39%), while some species performed rotary gallop only at high speed (19%). In a factorial analysis, the first principal component (PC), which accounted for 40% of the total variance, was positively correlated to the relative speed and negatively correlated to size and body mass. The second PC was correlated to the ratio between distal and proximal limb segments. Large size and longer proximal limb segments were associated with transverse gallop, while rotary and speed-dependent species showed higher metacarpus/humerus and metatarsus/femur length ratio and faster relative speeds. The resulting limb excursion angles were proportional to the square-root of the Froude number, and significantly higher in rotary gallopers. The gait pattern analysis indicated significant differences between transverse and rotary gallop in forelimb and hindlimb duty factor (t-test; P<0.001), and in duration of the forelimb contact (t-test; P0.045). Our results show that an exclusive gallop gait is adopted by a large number of mammalian species, and indicate that the gallop pattern depends on diverse environmental, morphometrical and biomechanical characters.

An exploratory clustering approach for extracting stride parameters from tracking collars on free ranging wild animals

“…This simply requires a visual check and comparison with expected gait transition values (Heglund et al, 1974). Our results fit with previous observations (Biancardi and Minetti, 2012) that dogs perform transverse and rotary gallops at low and high speeds, respectively ( Fig. 2A,D and B,E and Fig.…”

The magnitude of muscular activation of four canine forelimb muscles in dogs performing two agility-specific tasks

“…Dogs were also free to choose the preferred gait between recorded strides of interest. In most cases, and as is expected at high rates of speed, the dogs in this study exhibited a rotary gallop when performing the A-frame and jumping tasks [66]. It is unlikely that this would have a large impact on the findings from this study since these factors would affect both the right and left sides, and our measures were only from the left side.…”

Effects of Substrate Size and Orientation on Quadrupedal Gait Kinematics in Mouse Lemurs (Microcebus murinus)

“…Rotary gallops (opposite side leads), conversely, are usually characterized by prominent spinal flexion/extension, and an “extended” suspension phase (limbs extended), or by a combination of both gathered and extended suspension phases (Hildebrand, , ). Rotary gallops are typically associated with increased maneuverability and with greater acceleration, and tend to be preferred by smaller, faster, and more agile mammals (Biancardi and Minetti, ).…”