Bird feet and legs

African jacana. Extremely long toes[1] and claws help distribute the jacana's weight over a wide area to allow it to walk on floating leaves.[2]
Main article: Bird anatomy

The anatomy of bird legs and feet is diverse, encompassing many accommodations to perform a wide variety of functions.[1]

Most birds are classified as digitigrade animals, meaning they walk on their toes rather than the entire foot.[3][4] Some of the lower bones of the foot (the distals and most of the metatarsal) are fused to form the tarsometatarsus – a third segment of the leg, specific to birds.[5][6] The upper bones of the foot (proximals), in turn, are fused with the tibia to form the tibiotarsus, as over time the centralia disappeared.[7][6][4][8] The fibula also reduced.[5]

The legs are attached to a strong assembly consisting of the pelvic girdle extensively fused with the uniform spinal bone (also specific to birds) called the synsacrum, built from some of the fused bones.[8][9]

Bird left leg and pelvic girdle skeleton
  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Gill01 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Dict90_1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ a b Proctor & Lynch (1993); Kowalska-Dyrcz (1990); Dobrowolski et al (1981)
  6. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Romer77 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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  8. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Dobrowolski81 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Dict90_2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).