Types of Movement

Types of movement

Different animals rest on the ground with different parts of their feet when walking and running. People and bears rest on their entire foot, i.e. they are plantigrade; This is a type of locomotion adapted to relatively slow walking. To increase the effective length of the limbs and thereby increase running speed, some animals, such as dogs and cats, have adapted to locomotion on their toes, i.e. became finger-walking.

In ungulates, running speed is even greater by lengthening the leg bones and raising the ankles and wrists even higher above the ground, so that the animal runs on the tips of one or two toes on each limb. Such animals could be called “hoof-walking”, and they are combined into the group Ungulata (Latin ungula - hoof).