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Biomechanics

Leaping lizards and dinosaurs

Nature volume 481, pages 148–149 (2012)Cite this article

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Tightrope walkers use poles to keep their balance. A study reveals that agama lizards use their tails much like balancing poles as they leap through the air — and that some dinosaurs may have done the same. See Letter p.181

Agama lizards jump quite well, and have a remarkable ability to land safely. On page 181 of this issue, Libby et al.1 describe a study in which they filmed agamas jumping from a horizontal platform to a vertical wall. The lizards used mid-air tail movements to ensure that their trunk was tilted at an appropriate angle for landing as they approached the wallFootnote 1.

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Figure 1: Conservation of angular momentum.

Notes

  1. *This article and the paper1 under discussion were published online on 04 January 2012.

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  1. R. McNeill Alexander is at the Institute of Integrative and Comparative Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds LS6 4BU, UK.,

    R. McNeill Alexander

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  1. R. McNeill Alexander
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Correspondence to R. McNeill Alexander.

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Alexander, R. Leaping lizards and dinosaurs. Nature 481, 148–149 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10797

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