Limbs of Animals

Limbs are defined as jointed appendages of a human or other animal’s body. Animals have legs(lower limbs) which acts as a support system and bears all the weight of the body and most importantly helps them to perform various locomotive activities. Humans have two legs while other mammals such as dogs, cats have four legs; the frontal ones are called fore legs while back ones are called hind legs. Insects have 3 to 200 pairs of legs whilst birds only have 2 hind legs and instead of forelegs they have wings which helps them to fly.

Limbs

Various Types of Limbs:

Various Types of Limbs

In the human body there are two kinds of limbs, Upper limbs and Lower limbs. Two Upper limbs are called arms while two lower limbs are called arms. Animals like horses have only four lower limbs, frontal ones are fore legs whilst back ones are hind legs. Insects also have lower limbs called legs whose pair ranges from 3 to 200. Birds have two lower limbs and in place of upper limbs they have two wings that help them to fly on higher altitudes.

What is the Structure of Human Limbs?

Human body’s upper and lower limbs consist of elements of the shoulder and hip girdles. The arms and legs are connected by the torso. Moreover if we restrict ourselves with legs then all the mammals have the same structure, A knee joins the upper and lower portion of each leg, At the bottom of each leg there is a foot along with muscles which overall makes our body move. While if we talk about arms then arms are weak but very mobile in nature because of this they can reach at a wide range of angles and distances in order to grasp or manipulate the objects.

Interesting Facts about Limbs:

• The bones of the human leg consist of basal segment, femur, tibia, fibula and foot.

• First artificial/prosthetic limb was made by a French surgeon Ambroise Pare in 1579.

• Most prosthetic wears are created using titanium, aluminium and carbon fibers.

• The oldest prosthetic wear was found in the year 2000 in the city of cairo. It was a prosthetic toe made of wood and leather dated back 3000 years.

• Currently there are 2.1 million people living without a limb.

Sample Questions:

1. What are limbs? List their functions.

Ans. Limbs are jointed appendages present in all the animals since their birth, limbs act as a support system for the body which helps to perform various physical tasks like locomotion- running, climbing, walking, climbing, grasping, holding and even writing.

2. Describe the structure of human limbs.

Ans. Human body has 4 limbs in total, in which 2 are upper limbs and other 2 are lower limbs.upper and lower limbs consist of elements of the shoulder and hip girdles. A knee joints the upper and lower segment of each lower limb while an elbow joints the upper and lower segment of each upper limb.

3. Does birds have upper limbs?

Ans. Yes, birds have upper limbs. But they are not like human upper limbs, their upper limbs are evolved into wings which help them to fly at high altitudes.

Conclusion:

Limbs are a very important part of any animal body, various physical survival activities of animals depend on limbs. If a person lacks a limb either by natural or accidental cause, it becomes really difficult for him to survive with normal citizens, they are considered different from normal people and are called as disabled people. Nowadays science has evolved to some extent such that these limbical disabilities can be avoided by using artificial/prosthetic wear which adds to the body like an actual limb.