Adaptations for Locomotion
Chapter 27: Mammals

Mammals require large amounts of energy to maintain a constant body temperature, as well as for locomotion. Depending on a variety of factors, such as diet, muscular physiology, body shape, and type of skeleton, mammals move at different rates. You can analyze these adaptations when you compare the following mammals:

Sloth	crawls up trees at a rate of 1 m/15 seconds
Pronghorn antelope	can average 64 km/hr for more than 10 km
Cheetah	can run more than 100 km/hr, but only for a few hundred meters

Analyze the Information

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1. What can you hypothesize about the sloth's energy demands and body shape?
2. Which mammal—the cheetah or the antelope—would win a 100-meter dash? Which would win a long-distance marathon?
3. What adaptations might enable animals to run at high speeds for long periods?

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