Muscle fibres differ from species to species of animal and between parts of the same animal. Apart from the distinction between voluntary and involuntary muscles, muscles differ in structure and activity.

Muscles differ in the arrangement of their myofilaments. The principal types of muscles are striated muscle, in which the filaments are organized in transverse bands as in Figure 2; obliquely striated muscle, in which the filaments are staggered, making the bands oblique (Figure 3); and smooth muscle, in which the filaments are arranged irregularly. In vertebrates, all voluntary muscles are striated, and all involuntary muscles are smooth, except for cardiac muscle, which is involuntary but striated. Obliquely striated muscle is found only in some invertebrate groups (the nematodes, annelids, and mollusks) and has the protein paramyosin in the thick filaments as well as myosin.

Muscles differ in the stimuli required to activate them. In vertebrates, voluntary muscles require action potentials (electrical signals) in their nerves to initiate every contraction. Some involuntary muscles are spontaneously active, and the action potentials in their nerves only modify the natural rhythm of contraction. The leg muscles of all insects, and the wing muscles of many, require action potentials to initiate every contraction; however, the wing muscles of other insects consist of fibrillar muscle, which requires only occasional action potentials to maintain its rapid rhythmic contractions. The wings of these insects are attached to the body in such a way as to have a resonant frequency of vibration (like a guitar string that vibrates when plucked at its resonant frequency). When fibrillar muscles are active, they contract so as to maintain the vibrations of the resonant system.

Muscles differ in the ability to exert stress. Muscles that exert large stresses have long, thick filaments that carry larger numbers of cross bridges. The result is more cross bridges than are found in other muscles. This means that more force can be transmitted from each thick filament to the adjacent thin filaments, and larger stresses can be exerted. Less stress can be exerted when the fibres are shortening than when they are maintaining constant length, and more can be exerted when they are being forcibly stretched.

Muscles differ in the manner in which their forces are controlled. Most of the fibres in the voluntary muscles of mammals can only be switched on or off, and different degrees of force are obtained by activating different numbers of fibres. In many other muscles, however, the force exerted by each fibre can be varied. In these muscles, force is not controlled by activating different numbers of fibres but by changing the intensity of muscle activation as a whole.

Muscles differ in the ranges of length over which they can operate. Smooth muscles generally work over wider ranges of length than striated ones, but there are a few exceptional striated muscles. One such muscle in the tongue of chameleons can shorten to one-sixth of its fully extended length.

Muscles also differ in their speed of action, including the rates at which they develop force and shorten. If a muscle shortens by one-tenth of its length in one-tenth of a second, its rate of shortening is one length per second. Maximum rates of shortening vary between species and between muscle fibres in a single animal. For example, two muscles in the limbs of mice have maximum shortening speeds (at 37 °C) of 24 and 13 lengths per second.

Finally, muscles differ in their metabolism. The adenosine triphosphate (ATP) that they use as their immediate energy source may be produced either by oxidative reactions, in which food is oxidized to carbon dioxide and water, or by processes that do not require oxygen (anaerobic processes). Vertebrates and crabs use the anaerobic process of glycolysis, converting the carbohydrate glycogen to lactic acid, for short bursts of vigorous activity, such as sprinting. The burst of activity is followed by a recovery period in which oxygen is used to oxidize some of the lactic acid, releasing the energy needed to convert the rest back to glycogen. The advantage of using anaerobic metabolism in this way is that the intensity of activity during the burst is not limited by the rate at which the blood can bring oxygen to the muscles.

In vertebrates, many muscle fibres perform only oxidative metabolism or only glycolysis, though some perform both. Oxidative fibres are commonly red, due to the presence of the pigment myoglobin. Most fishes show an obvious distinction between the main bulk of white swimming muscle and a narrow strip of red muscle along the side of the body. Slow swimming is powered by the red (oxidative) muscle and bursts of fast swimming by the white (glycolytic) muscle. Red and white muscles are also easy to distinguish in the domestic chicken, in which the pale meat of the breast consists mainly of white fibres and the dark meat of the legs consists of red fibres. The breast muscles are the main muscles of the wings, which are used by chickens only for occasional short bursts of flight. Other birds that practice sustained flight (e.g., hummingbirds) mainly have red breast muscles.

Muscles that work skeletons

A clamshell is an example of a simple system in which a rigid skeleton is worked by muscles. The two rigid parts of the shell (Figure 4A) are hinged together. They can be closed to protect the animal within or allowed to open. A block of rubbery protein, the inner hinge ligament, lies just inside the hinge. When the adductor muscle contracts, it closes the shell, but, in so doing, it compresses the inner hinge ligament. When it relaxes, the ligament recoils elastically, reopening the shell. This is an unusual system, in that it is worked by just one muscle. Most other skeletal systems need muscles in antagonistic pairs, in which each muscle is paired with a muscle of the opposite effect.

This antagonism is illustrated by the human ankle (Figure 4B). The tibialis anterior muscle flexes the ankle (raising the toes) and the soleus muscle extends the ankle. These muscles make up an antagonistic pair. In this particular case there is another muscle, the gastrocnemius, which cooperates with the soleus, helping it to extend the ankle. (The gastrocnemius, however, crosses the knee as well as the ankle and affects both joints.)

The ankle is not a simple hinge joint. As well as flexion and extension, it can exhibit inversion (the sole of the foot faces the other leg) or eversion (the opposite movement). These movements are controlled by the tibialis posterior, which inverts the ankle, and the peronaeus muscles, which are antagonistic and evert it.

A hinge such as the clam joint or the human knee performs just one kind of movement, flexion/extension, expressed in technical terms as allowing one degree of freedom of movement. The human ankle performs two kinds of movement, flexion/extension and inversion/eversion, allowing two degrees of freedom. Ball-and-socket joints, such as the human hip, allow three degrees of freedom. Most animal joints have at least two muscles (an antagonistic pair) for each degree of freedom.

Seldom are muscle fibres as long as a muscle, but many muscles, such as the biceps in the human arm, are composed of relatively long fibres lying nearly parallel to each other. These parallel muscles are attached to tendons or apodemes (in arthropods, chitinous rods that serve as sites for muscle attachment) only at their extreme ends. Since muscle fibres can contract about one-third of their resting length, this arrangement is suitable to an extensive and quick movement. The deltoid muscle in the human shoulder is said to be pennate; relatively short fibres attach diagonally onto a tendon that penetrates far into the muscle. The ankle muscles shown in Figure 4B are pennate muscles, but most of the hamstring muscles (at the back of the thigh) are parallel. The adductor muscles of the shells of clams are parallel, but most of the leg muscles of arthropods are pennate. A pennate muscle may contain many more and shorter fibres than a parallel muscle of equal mass. Therefore, the pennate muscle can exert a greater force but cannot shorten a great deal; the parallel-fibred muscle can exert only a relatively small force but can shorten significantly. The presence of pennate muscle in a given structure may have the same effect as a longer lever arm. In the slender legs of arthropods, with insufficient space for bulky muscles or long lever arms, many of the muscles are pennate.

Tendons and apodemes have elastic properties. Tendons in the legs of mammals serve as springs, reducing the energy cost of running: energy that is lost as the foot hits the ground and decelerates the body is stored as elastic strain energy in tendons and is subsequently returned in an elastic recoil. An apodeme in the hind legs of locusts, for example, is one of the important elastic elements in the catapult mechanism that powers jumping.