Promoter: Jamie MacLaren
Subject: Tapirs are one of only a handful of hooved mammals which have side-toes on their limbs which do not come into contact with the ground throughout their entire limb movement. It has long been inferred that they share this characteristic with the early ancestors of horses and rhinoceroses – the moder-day closest relatives of tapirs. This plesiomorphic side-toe utilisation has not been investigated across extant tapirs, which demonstrate a notable variability in their limb bone morphologies and digit lengths. Understanding the kinematics and duration of side-toe use during habitual locomotion in tapirs can provide revealing insights into the nature of form and function, and be used to better inform simulations of locomotion in extinct relatives (such as horses) in deep time. Over the past 10 years, a large data repository of lateral videos of tapirs has been collated, allowing for the investigation of locomotor kinematics in this enigmatic group. Recent advances in machine-learning and deep neural networks allow for rapid digitisation of videos to provide kinematic information on a wide range of biological systems, including mammalian locomotion.
​In this project, the student will: (1) become familiar with the general biology and locomotor anatomy of tapirs; (2) will be given training in video analysis and point-tracking, including training in the DeepLabCut toolbox; (3) perform 2D kinematic analyses of the forelimb digits of a range of tapirs; (4) assess how side-digit kinematics varies across tapir individuals and species, including assessing the duration of side-toe use. (OPTIONAL) the student may be able to gather their own kinematic data from zoo visits and incorporate those into the study.