In a collaborative project with Drs. Barry Sinervo
and Donald Miles,
we have recently gathered a large body of 3-D kinematic data for
running lizards (Uta stansburiana). Lizards were afixed
with a total of nine infrared reflective markers (2mm diameter
spheres; ca. 25mg mass) on the following dorsal locations: head,
pectoral midline (i.e. shoulder), halfway between pectoral and
pelvic midline, pelvic midline (i.e. hip), tail at mid tail length,
elbow, forefoot, knee, hindfoot. We used my MacReflex motion tracking
system to record 3-D coordinates of these locations at 60 samples/s
as lizards ran on a treadmill. The platform-independent Quicktime
movie available from the site shown below gives a tiny glimpse
at the kind of data that we have collected. Details will be available
in forthcoming publications.
A frame from the movie, which
shows animated graphs of a female Uta Stansburiana lizard
running