The striking postcranial anatomy of bats reflects their specialized ecology; they are the only mammals capable of powered flight. Bat postcranial adaptations include a series of membranes that connect highly-modified, or even novel, skeletal elements. While most studies of bat postcranial anatomy have focused on their wings, bat hindlimbs also contain many derived and functionally important, yet less studied, features. In this study, I investigate the anatomy, evolution, and function of the calcar, a novel skeletal element found in bat feet. In the first chapter, I introduce calcar anatomy with a detailed study of three bat species with different flight and foraging ecologies. I found more complex muscle arrangements in the species that exhibit more maneuverable flight, suggesting that they have more control over calcar movement. This first study inspired the rest of the dissertation, by suggesting that calcar morphology is functionally-relevant. In the second chapter, I present a thorough overview of calcar skeletal anatomy throughout Chiroptera. Through evolutionary modeling of calcar length, I find that the calcar exhibits an early burst of morphological evolution, indicating that the calcar anatomically diversified as bats initially radiated through the aerosphere. In the third chapter, I again narrow the focus and conduct an analysis of calcar motion during free, forward-flight in a laboratory population of Seba's short-tailed fruit bat (Carollia perspicillata). I find that the calcar does rotate about its joint with the calcaneus and that this rotation is greater about one axis than another. The muscles inserting on the calcar may act to stabilize it in one plane of motion. These chapters provide the most complete study of calcars to-date, particularly with regard to the quantitative tests of calcar evolutionary patterns and kinematics. Four data tables and one video are provided as Electronic Supplementary Materials for Chapters 2 and 3. Collectively, these three chapters demonstrate that novel skeletal additions can become integrated into vertebrate body plans and subsequently evolve into a variety of forms, potentially impacting clade diversification by expanding the available morphological space into which organisms can evolve.

Evolution has had a marked effect on the head region and distal segments of the limbs of mammals. Excellent insights into the evolution of the head region are available from published material, but despite the vast literature, there has been no serious attempt at an overall evolutionary synthesis for the limbs. This book provides such phylogenetic insights, based upon first hand familiarity with the comparative material. It is the author's firm conviction that such an approach leads to a more enlightened understanding of human anatomy. The book will be valued not only by those concerned with human evolution, but also by surgeons and others requiring a detailed understanding of the anatomy of the human hand and foot.

The paleontologist and professor of anatomy who co-discovered Tiktaalik, the “fish with hands,” tells a “compelling scientific adventure story that will change forever how you understand what it means to be human” (Oliver Sacks). By examining fossils and DNA, he shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our heads are organized like long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genomes look and function like those of worms and bacteria. Your Inner Fish makes us look at ourselves and our world in an illuminating new light. This is science writing at its finest—enlightening, accessible and told with irresistible enthusiasm.

This book offers a new explanation for the development of flight in mammals and offers detailed morphological descriptions of mammals with flapping flight. The skeletomuscular apparatus of the shoulder girdle and forelimbs of tree shrews, flying lemurs and bats is described in detail. Special attention is paid to the recognition of peculiar features of the skeleton and joints. For the basic locomotor patterns of flying lemurs and bats, the kinematic models of the shoulder girdle elements are developed. The most important locomotor postures of these animals are analyzed by means of statics. The key structural characters of the shoulder girdle and forelimbs of flying lemurs and bats, the formation of which provided transition of mammals from terrestrial locomotion to gliding and then, to flapping flight, are recognized. The concept is proposed that preadaptations preceding the acquisition of flapping flight could have come from widely sprawled forelimb posture while gliding from tree to tree and running up the thick trunks. It is shown that flying lemur is an adequate morphofunctional model for an ancestral stage of bats. The evolutionary ecomorphological scenario describing probable transformational stages of typical parasagittal limbs of chiropteran ancestors into wings is developed.

Every three years a major international conference on bats draws the leading workers in the field to a carefully orchestrated presentation of the research and advances and current state of understanding of bat biology. Bats are the second most populous group of mammalia species, after rodents, and they are probably the most intensively studied group of mammals. Virtually all mammologists and a large proportion of organismic biologists are interested in bats. The earlier two edited books deriving from previous bat research conferences, as well as this one, have been rigorously edited by Tom Kunz and others, with all chapters subjected to peer review. The resulting volumes, published first by Academic Press and most recently by Smithsonian, have sold widely as the definitive synthetic treatments of current scientific understanding of bats.

Knowledge of the mechanical properties of the skeletal system is important to understanding how our body works and how to repair it when it is damaged. This text describes the biomechanics of bone, cartilage, tendons and ligaments. It does not require mathematics beyond calculus or neglecting the biological properties of skeletal tissue.