Leg
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A leg is a limb on a organism's body that supports the rest of the animal above the ground between the ankle and the hip and the groin. and is used for locomotion. The end of the leg farthest from the animal's body is often either modified or attached to another structure that is modified to disperse the animal's weight on the ground (see foot). In bipedal vertebrate animals, the two lower limbs are usually referred to as the 'legs' and the two upper limbs as 'arms' or 'wings' as the case may be.
In the anatomy of vertebrates, including human beings (see human leg), leg is also used to refer to the entire limb, but its precise definition refers[1][2][3] only to the segment between the knee and the ankle. In vertebrate and human anatomy this segment is also called the shank,[4][5] and the front (anterior) of the segment is called the shin or pretibia.
Most animals have an even number of legs. Many taxonomic groups are characterized by the number of legs their members possess.
- Uniped: 1
- Biped: 2
- Tripedal: 3
- Quadruped: 4
- Arthropoda: 4, 6 (Insects), 8, 12, or 14
- Some arthropods have more than a dozen legs; a few species possess over 100. Despite what their names might suggest,
- Centipedes may have less than 20 or more than 300 legs.
- Millipedes have fewer than 1,000 legs, but up to 750.
- Some arthropods have more than a dozen legs; a few species possess over 100. Despite what their names might suggest,
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[edit] Notes
- ^ "Leg". Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). National Library of Medicine. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/cgi/mesh/2007/MB_cgi?mode=&term=Leg&field=entry. Retrieved 2009-04-18.
- ^ "leg". Dorland's Medical Dictionary for Healthcare Consumers. Elsevier. http://www.mercksource.com/pp/us/cns/cns_hl_dorlands_split.jsp?pg=/ppdocs/us/common/dorlands/dorland/five/000058188.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-18.
- ^ Merriam-Webster Dictionary leg
- ^ Kardong, Kenneth V. (2009). Vertebrates: Comparative anatomy, function, evolution (5th. ed.). McGraw-Hill. p. 340. ISBN 978-0-07-304058-5.
- ^ Merriam-Webster Dictionary shank
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