Hello aspirant

Adaptations for cursorial locomotion in terrestrial vertebrates include:

• Increased stride length by:
  • Increased limb bone length
  • Adoption of digitigrade or unguligrade stance
  • Loss of clavicle in mammals, which allows the scapula to move forwards and backwards with the limb and thereby increase stride length.
  • Increased spinal flexion during galloping
• Decreased distal limb weight (in order to minimize moment of inertia
  • Increase in mass of proximal muscles with decrease in mass of distal muscles
  • Increase in length of distal limb bones (the manus and pes) rather than proximal ones (the brachium or thigh).
  • Longer tendons in distal limb