Parrots Climb Using Three Limbs, Thereby Violating The ‘Forbidden Phenotype’
Parrots are unique because they use their beak and legs when climbing, which makes them the only animal with three functional limbs
A rosy-faced lovebird, Agapornis roseicollis, also known as a peach-faced lovebird, briefly pauses its tree-climbing activity to pose for the photographer. (Credit: Steven Gaines / New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine)
Humans have had an extraordinarily long fascination with the triskelion motif, whose name is derived from the Greek and translates as “three-legged”. Three-legged creatures feature in ancient Chinese mythology, a triskelion featuring three human legs joined at the hip and flexed at the knees adorns the coat of arms for the Isle of Man, and much more recently, author H. G. Wells described Martian invaders attacking Earth with massive, three-legged war machines called tripods that they modelled after their own three-legged body plan in his extraordinarily popular and influential 1898 science-fiction novel, War of the Worlds.
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