Four types of locomotion

The essential arboreality of primates has guaranteed the relative uniformity of the locomotor apparatus. Even humans, who have long since abandoned the trees as their principal lodging place, have only partially lost the physical adaptations for tree climbing; their hands, in particular, remain in the arboreal mold. Only the feet have lost their primitive prehensility in adapting to bipedal walking. Primate locomotion can be classified on behavioral grounds into four major types: vertical clinging and leaping, quadrupedalism, brachiation, and bipedalism. Within these major categories, there are a number of subtypes, and within these subtypes, there are an infinite number of variations between species and, by virtue of individual variability, within species. The differences between the four major categories lie principally in the degree to which the forelimbs and hind limbs are used to climb, swing, jump, and run.

Vertical clinging and leaping, for instance, is primarily a function of the hind limbs, as is bipedalism, whereas brachiation is performed exclusively with the forelimbs. Quadrupedalism involves both forelimbs and hind limbs, of course, although not to an equal extent. Some quadrupeds are hind limb-dominated; in others, the forelimb and the hind limb are equally important. The hind limb-dominated primates, such as the langurs and colobus monkeys, employ a large element of leaping in their movements, a less-notable feature of the more generalized quadrupeds such as guenons. The quadrupedal category is inevitably somewhat of a grab bag, and the gaits included in it have not yet been studied critically. One subtype, here designated as slow climbing, differs profoundly from the other subtypes of the category, being somewhat ponderous and devoid of elements of leaping or jumping. The species in this category are lorises and pottos, all of which are arboreal and nocturnal.

As many authorities who have studied locomotion in free-ranging primate species have pointed out, the classifications of locomotion into categories is a somewhat artificial procedure. A chimpanzee shows a variety of different gaits according to the circumstances of the environment: quadrupedalism (knuckle walking), climbing, bipedalism, and brachiation. This holds true also for the langurs and colobus monkeys, which are designated semibrachiators, which means that they mainly move quadrupedally (usually with a “galloping gait” rather than walking) but also jump across gaps and occasionally swing by their arms. Although the categories are phrased in behavioral terms, their implications are also anatomic. Brachiation is the mode of locomotion for which the animal is specifically adapted; the anatomic correlates of brachiation are quite unmistakable and can be determined in fossil bones as much as in living animals. In some instances, it may well be that a particular anatomy is misleading. It has been argued that the anatomy of the great apes (including humans), for instance, is that of a brachiator, yet in fact they seldom brachiate (humans rarely and adult gorillas probably never). Watching gorillas, in particular, suggests that what appeared at first to be a locomotor adaptation may actually be a feeding one; the gorilla sits erect amid its food, reaching all around it to pull it in, and thereby saves an enormous amount of energy. The shortened lumbar spine (giving a lowered centre of gravity), broad chest, enhanced mobility of the shoulder joint, and flexible wrist may be related to this feeding style. The gibbons’ specializations for brachiation may be derived from these same traits, rather than the other way about.

Changes in climate and geography during the evolutionary history of primates may also have led to structural atavisms in the anatomy of living primates. Many chimpanzees now living in woodland-savanna conditions in Africa, where the trees are widely spaced and generally unsuitable for the classic climbing style of forest-living chimpanzees, have adopted a largely ground-living life. Gorillas and chimpanzees are first and foremost knuckle walkers, but, given an environment like that of a zoo with a cage specially designed with lots of overhead bars and ropes, they will brachiate fairly frequently.

When the subject of primate arboreal locomotion is studied in evolutionary terms by using fossils, it becomes clear that locomotor categories are not discrete but constitute a continuum of change from a hind limb-dominated gait to a forelimb-dominated one. The best single indicator of gait, one that has the added advantage of being strictly quantitative, is the intermembral index. Briefly, the index is a ratio expressed as percentage of arm length to leg length; an index over 100 indicates relatively long arms. This provides a model by means of which the locomotion of an early primate can be inferred by determination of the intermembral index of the fossil skeleton. Animals do not necessarily fall discretely into categories. Species with indexes lying between those of clearly recognizable locomotor types represent transitional types, whose style of locomotion really does manifest features of both of the bracketing categories. Some lemurs have indexes that fall between 65 and 75, and their gait is a combination of vertical clinging and quadrupedalism. The South American spider monkeys (genus Ateles), whose index lies between 100 and 108, show a type of locomotion that contains the elements of both quadrupedalism and brachiation.

When the intermembral index is applied to fossil primates, it appears that the earliest primates living in the Eocene Epoch (56 million to 33.9 million years ago) must have moved about somewhat in the manner of modern vertical clingers and leapers. Quadrupedal gaits were well established during the Miocene Epoch (23 million to 5.3 million years ago) when the two major environmental types of quadrupedal gait— terrestrial and the arboreal—were established, with indexes in the region of 85–100 and 75–85, respectively. Brachiation, associated with a high intermembral index, was established as a way of arboreal life at the end of the Miocene, with the small hominid Oreopithecus from Italy. There is direct evidence of bipedalism’s extending back four million years, and certain indirect evidence (see below Evolution and paleontology) suggests that bipedalism might have evolved in a modified form up to a million years before that.

Bipedalism

Some degree of bipedal ability, of course, is a basic possession of the order Primates. All primates sit upright. Many stand upright without supporting their body weight by their arms, and some, especially the apes, actually walk upright for short periods. The view that the possession of uprightness is a solely human attribute is untenable; humans are merely the one species of the order that has exploited the potential of this ancestry to its extreme.

Chimpanzees, gorillas and gibbons, macaques, spider monkeys, capuchins, and others are all frequent bipedal walkers. To define humans categorically as “bipedal” is not enough; to describe them as habitually bipedal is nearer the truth, but habit as such does not leave its mark on fossil bones. Some more precise definition is needed. The human walk has been described as striding, a mode of locomotion defining a special pattern of behaviour and a special morphology. Striding, in a sense, is the quintessence of bipedalism; it is a means of traveling during which the energy output of the body is reduced to a physiological minimum by the smooth, undulating flow of the progression. It is a complex activity involving the joints and muscles of the whole body, and it is likely that the evolution of the human gait took place gradually over a period of 10 million years or so.

The pattern of locomotion of human ancestors immediately preceding the acquisition of bipedalism has long been a matter of controversy, and the question has not yet been resolved. The evidence derived from anatomic, physiological, and biochemical studies for the close affinity of chimpanzees and humans, and the slightly less close affinity of gorillas, would suggest that humans evolved from a knuckle-walking ancestry. There have been claims that the wrist anatomy of australopithecines shows remnant knuckle-walking adaptations. The issue is still hotly debated, and some authorities continue to support a brachiation model for the ancestry of all the apes. Other authorities have proposed other solutions: semibrachiation, for example, and even a form of locomotion similar to that of tarsiers and other clingers and leapers. At the present time, there is insufficient information to elucidate the phylogeny of man’s bipedal gait, except that it can be assumed to have involved a large measure of truncal uprightness.