How do dogs and four-legged animals go?

Although most of us see our four-legged friends walking back and forth every day, we, even many experts from the natural history museum or illustrators for books teaches anatomy about animals, does not seem to know how they go.

A study published in the January 27 issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press newspaper, shows that surgeons and toy designers misinterpreted horse gaits as well as species. Other four-legged animals about half the time. Although the right actions of animals were described and published 120 years ago.

Gábor Horváth of the University of Eötvös said: 'Our key finding is the chance of detecting the wrong description in the way the four-legged animal in our pulse environment is 50%, not corresponding to any. something other than luck. This is quite surprising because the animal movement experts know very well about the characteristics of the four-legged way of walking since Eadweard Muybridge's famous pioneering work was published in the 1880s. '.

So how do they go? It turns out that all four-legged animals walk with their left front leg first and then the left leg first. Then they stepped right foot before the right foot first.Animals are only different at step time.

How do dogs go? It turned out that all four-legged animals walked with their left foot after a step before the left leg first. Then they stepped on the right foot and then the right foot first and so on. Animals differ only in step time. (Photo: iStockphoto / Tim McCaig)

According to Horváth, the reason that gait is universal is that it provides maximum static stability. In other words, when walking slowly the body of a dog or horse is always supported by three feet on the ground, forming a triangle.The closer the body is to the focus of these three points, the more stable and stable the body is.

Horváth and his colleagues suspected that the description of the gait was also often inaccurate because of carelessness. Others may not know how the surrounding creatures around us go, and some simply copy the previous patterns or illustrations that are already wrong.

In the case of children's toys, an error as if it might not be a big problem.

In natural history museums or anatomy textbooks, scientific accuracy is an absolute requirement.

Horváth also emphasized an exception that he said could prove the rule: Hollywood films such as Jurassic Park or Lord of the Rings do not understand how dinosaurs, elephants and species Another four-legged creature is right.That's because after the screen they often rely on experts on the mechanism of biology and animal movement.

The authors of the study include Gábor Horváth, Adelinda Csapó, Annamária Nyeste (Eötvös University, Budapest, Hungary), Balázs Gerics (Szent István University, Budapest, Hungary), Gábor Csorba (Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest, Hungary) and György Kriska (Eötvös University, Budapest, Hungary).