Three legged aliens?

[Kyrisch]

You're misapplying the term "3-" and "2-D".

 

Besides that, it's overwhelmingly obvious that this is entirely pulled out of your posterior.

[Moontanman]

You're misapplying the term "3-" and "2-D".

 

Besides that, it's overwhelmingly obvious that this is entirely pulled out of your posterior.

 

Sorry HB but that was really funny, I laughed my posterior off Pioneer (HB) are you thinking of a three legged animal using each leg in turn? Did you see the latest War of the Worlds with Tom Cat? The aliens had three legs, they walked like a tripod, two then one, two then one, not one two three, this gait looked entirely natural. To walk One two three your legs would have to be in a row wouldn't they?

[npts2020]

Jack Chalker in "Midnight at the Well of Souls" describes three legged creatures that tip themselves hoizontally then rotate their entire bodies. Supposedly thus spinning they were able to achieve higher speeds of locomotion.

[bombus]

I suppose that is possible. There is a worm that curls up into a wheel and rolls.

[Moontanman]

I suppose that is possible. There is a worm that curls up into a wheel and rolls.

 

I hate to have to ask but I never heard of that one, can you provide a link?

[I.Q.129]

Possibly and no. 3 sexes are just wrong1:eek:

[Flashman]

You folks got me thinking. I came up with one scenario for a dominant life form being 3 legged. If there were seal-like or dolphin-like critters, air breather that returned to the sea, and there was a global inundation... the descendants of those might recolonize the land. They might not need high speed locomotion, and develop a single large back leg, on which they can balance a bit and use their front legs to manipulate stuff, but also require front legs for locomotion still, though they might be able to carry stuff "one handed".

[insane_alien]

Possibly and no. 3 sexes are just wrong1

 

why would 3 genders be wrong? most species only have one(which makes the concept of gender useless for them), a percentage of species have 2(us humans included) and some of those can swap or be both at the same time. a third one would be no less wrong although would be interesting to see what role the third gender would make. also, three genders is not a requirement for an organism with three legs.

[bombus]

I hate to have to ask but I never heard of that one, can you provide a link?

 

Try this:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_locomotion#Rolling

 

I think it must have been the caterpillar I read about.

[npts2020]

Wow. I was unaware rolling for locomotion is as common as it is.

[pioneer]

Whatever body geometry, optimized locomotion requires a nerve signal to do this. If we extrapolate this back to the brain or neural center a rhythm needs to occur in the brain, which sort of sets the neural background that then will integrate into other interactions to get everything to coordinate. This is simple and becomes the base layer.

 

If you look at humans, when we walk the arms and legs sort of cross coordinate. Left arm forward and right leg forward. The value of this is two independent loops that coordinate. If we were wired left arm-left leg, these would be closer to one system making it harder to break the arms out into its own loop so we can use the arms independently. While we walk the arms can fiddle with the spear, although this movement may still sway with the base movement.

 

The human hands added another loop to the base control system, which differentiated from the arm loop. We can fiddle with the I-pod while we walk with the arms still sort of swaying with the walking motion.

[Moontanman]

Try this:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_locomotion#Rolling

 

I think it must have been the caterpillar I read about.

 

Thanks, i wasn't aware of rolling in those contexts. I knew about the snake that supposedly turns it's self into a hoop and rolls but that is just a myth with no truth to it.