Ideas in theoretical biology Why legs and not wheels?

Abstract

The inanimate world, including Man's wheeled vehicles, follow the classical mechanical laws: trajectories of objects in phase-space are predictable on the basis of the vectors of forces acting on the objects. Animal locomotion does not involve wheels, but relies on antagonistic contractile fibre systems, and defies prediction of trajectories. These features are tied up with the faculty of "immediate steering" in response to momentaneous physiological and environmental stimuli. Thus, animal motor systems have two relatively independent inputs: the sensory/information system, which is the cause for specific trajectories, and the "erfolg system" which permits for the execution of the thus instructed motion. The problem of relative energetic magnitudes between the two systems - in that the causative system involves small, yet the executive system large energies - is specially considered in relation to locomotion by antagonistically functioning mechanical elements. © 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers.