In plantigrades (e.g. humans, bears, most rodents), the entire sole of the foot touches the ground, in digitigrades (most carnivores, most birds), the heel is off the ground and unguligrades (ungulates) walk on hooves.

  • HylicManoeuvreOP
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    18 hours ago

    Damn, good point. Couldn’t come up with a counter-example so just copy/pasted off of Wikipedia verbatim lmao Look out for tomorrow’s TIL when I look up what that type of locomotion is called lol

    Actually, I’m really at a loss at what to call this paraphyletic group; tetrapods come to mind but they technically still include snakes…

    • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
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      8 hours ago

      Modified plantigrade? Close relatives like skinks are plantigrades and some snake species have vestigial hind limb protrusions that are basically highly-modified femurs.