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American Zoologist 1975 15(2):455-467; doi:10.1093/icb/15.2.455
© 1975 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
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Tetrapod Limblessness: Evolution and Functional Corollaries

CARL GANS
Department of Zoology, The University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104

Multiple lines of tetrapods show reduced limbs or their loss. Such patterns are in diverse lines associated with multiple other characteristics. Only bodily elongation represents a common denominator. Analysis suggests that elongation for traverse of crevices in a sheltering environment and for the utilization of undulatory locomotion may have provided the initial selective advantage to the system. Limb reduction would then have been secondary. This hypothesis leads to several interesting implications about the process of diversification in tetrapods.


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R. D. Maladen, Y. Ding, C. Li, and D. I. Goldman
Undulatory Swimming in Sand: Subsurface Locomotion of the Sandfish Lizard
Science, July 17, 2009; 325(5938): 314 - 318.
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