Leg Bone Structures

If you have pets, especially dogs,watch how they use their legs. In fact, the next time your pet is laying next to you, or on your lap, examine it's legs and joints.

You may well learn some interesting things.

In the mean time, you can take a look at this:

Note the similarities and differences. The architecture is very similar. Only the over all dimensions are different.

These differences make a lot of sense from an engineering point of view. That is, when you consider the variations in how the two legs are used.

Man stands upright on two legs. He therefore uses the his entire foot and his toes as a platform to balance upon.

The dog on the other hand stands on four paws, which are in fact it's toes, balance is less difficult to maintain on four supports than it is on two.

Also, a man's primary survival characteristic is his mind.

In primitive cultures he learned how to make and use tools to build shelters and raise crops for food.

He learned to make weapons for protection and to hunt and trap with. He also learned how to domesticate animals as beasts of burden.

In the wild, dogs instead rely on their sense of smell and their legs to survive. It needs to be fast and very stable in quick turns. This is why a dog's leg "appears" to be structurally backwards in caparison with  a man's leg. In fact it is not.

The joint that seems to be an inverted knee is in fact the ankle. Look again at the illustration.

This arrangement allows the dog to produce more thrust with its legs, and thereby greater speed.

This is of course important in both running down prey, as well as fleeing danger.

You will find the same type of similarities and differences in other mammals, such as horses, cows and cats etc.

Go ahead, check it out.

I haven't had the chance to examine reptile, or birds, but I would be willing to bet you would find the same kinds of structures and engineering principles there also.

I'm sure that there is a lot more involved in why GOD fashioned things the way he has, but these seem to me to be the most obvious. At least in my studies so far.

I hope you have found some of this helpful, or at least some what interesting. Feel free to E-mail me with questions or coments.

So Long

Droidmakr

Jan -1- 2000

P.S. Sorry about the pup,      I couldn't resist.