limbering up
Other than insects, arachnids, and cephalopods, are there any other animals with more than 4 limbs? Specifically, are there any vertebrates that have more than 4 limbs?
Scientists seem to have found none. With the exception, perhaps, of fish, if you count the fins as limbs. Fins, however, do not have bones, except for the case a few prehistoric lobe-finned fish, and the very odd coelacanth, which was also thought to be an extinct prehistoric animal until one turned up in 1938.
But back to our hunt, so to speak.
I happened to start wondering about this because the other night I had a dream about a 6-legged creature that resembled something like a mix of bear, rhinoceros, and elephant. Before you ask, I haven't seen Avatar, and I didn't even know that the movie featured animals with 6 limbs until I was researching this idea.
Of course, vertebrates with more than 4 limb are a staple of fiction and myth.
I started to wonder about all this when I was trying to draw the creature from my dreams. It turns out to be anatomically tricky to make more than 4 limbs work in a vertebrate. There's really no way to justify an extra set of hipbones and legs. It's slightly more sensible to duplicate the shoulders and forelimb structure of tetrapods, but still unsatisfactory.
Something like a centaur, which is a human torso on a horse body, joins two shoulder-and-forelimb variations seen in nature. It seems almost possible to justify this variant, as the "extra" forelimbs are arms and not used for locomotion.
In any case, in order to draw a vertebrate with more than 4 legs, it seems that I'll have to dispense with anatomical correctness and just fudge the extra pair of legs.
Now, however, I'll leave you with an animal of fantasy that has possibly the most peculiar means of getting around ever devised: Pedalternorotandomovens centroculatus articulosus.
Scientists seem to have found none. With the exception, perhaps, of fish, if you count the fins as limbs. Fins, however, do not have bones, except for the case a few prehistoric lobe-finned fish, and the very odd coelacanth, which was also thought to be an extinct prehistoric animal until one turned up in 1938.
But back to our hunt, so to speak.
I happened to start wondering about this because the other night I had a dream about a 6-legged creature that resembled something like a mix of bear, rhinoceros, and elephant. Before you ask, I haven't seen Avatar, and I didn't even know that the movie featured animals with 6 limbs until I was researching this idea.
Of course, vertebrates with more than 4 limb are a staple of fiction and myth.
I started to wonder about all this when I was trying to draw the creature from my dreams. It turns out to be anatomically tricky to make more than 4 limbs work in a vertebrate. There's really no way to justify an extra set of hipbones and legs. It's slightly more sensible to duplicate the shoulders and forelimb structure of tetrapods, but still unsatisfactory.
Something like a centaur, which is a human torso on a horse body, joins two shoulder-and-forelimb variations seen in nature. It seems almost possible to justify this variant, as the "extra" forelimbs are arms and not used for locomotion.
In any case, in order to draw a vertebrate with more than 4 legs, it seems that I'll have to dispense with anatomical correctness and just fudge the extra pair of legs.
Now, however, I'll leave you with an animal of fantasy that has possibly the most peculiar means of getting around ever devised: Pedalternorotandomovens centroculatus articulosus.