Researchers at the Royal Veterinary College in London have just analyzed for the first time the cartilage that allows giraffes to stand on their long legs.
How do giraffes, the tallest animals in the world (reaching up to 5.80m) and weighing between 1000 and 1500 kilos, manage to stand on their frail legs? This is the question – which all children once asked – that scientists at the Royal Veterinary College in London have attempted to answer.
They found that the ligaments of giraffes’ limbs are protected by a special structure, a groove made in the equivalent of the metatarsals (bones of the hands) and metacarpals (of the feet). This groove, which exists in other large animals like horses, appears to be deeper in giraffes, allowing them to support their own weight.
“I’m interested in how the giraffe evolved from an ancestor of rather modest proportions to this bizarre animal with a long neck and long legs,” says Christopher Basu, the doctoral student who conducted this study. Evolution has indeed made the giraffe an animal with long legs but relatively few muscles. And it is this ligament and the groove that protects it that would play an important role.
To arrive at these conclusions, Christopher Basu’s team made measurements on the legs of dead giraffes in captivity, using a hydraulic press to apply force to the legs and thus simulate the weight of the body. This experiment showed that the legs remained straight and stable without any additional support, even when scientists applied loads greater than the weight of a giraffe.
Scientists deduced that it was the ligaments that made it possible to support such a mass, which means that giraffes can support enormous weight without needing to use their muscles, which reduces fatigue.
This kind of discovery will perhaps allow us to better treat giraffes in captivity. In humans, this discovery could, as Christopher Basu points out, “inspire robotic devices or even prostheses”.
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