Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

How would a tripedal animal walk?

+0
−0

Animals on Earth have 2 or 4 legs they use for walking. On another world, however, animals have 3. I want to know how these animals will walk. How will their legs be placed and how will they move them to walk? For instance, maybe they would have 2 legs in front and one in the back, 1 in front and 2 in the back, or another setup entirely. What would the gait look like? Perhaps they alternate between 2 legged and 1 legged steps or maybe move 1 leg at a time in a 3-step cycle. While there are many potential answers I want to know which arrangement would be most effective and therefore most likely to evolve.

Assume that the 3 legs form a triangle (although not necessarily an equilateral one) rather than a line. Let's also say the animals evolved on an Earth-like world with equivalent gravity. I imagine that different sized creatures with different walking requirements might have different setups and gaits and even one animal may have multiple gaits just like we see on Earth. While I'm interested in the potential differences between large and small, fast and slow, let's focus this question to an animal species of roughly human size and with human needs to walk long distances and occasionally move faster.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/119016. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

0 comment threads

0 answers

Sign up to answer this question »