RE: bipedal

["Cunningham, Betty" <Cunningham@sega.com>]

Stephen said:

>Crocs swim, but they don't seem preselected to run around on two legs.
>Swimming seems to call for small legs and big tails.  Otters, beavers,
>seals, and whales are mammalian examples.

Seals (pinnipeds) have vestigal tails and are therefore a lousy example.   
 Perhaps you want to use something more like a manatee?  Beavers don't   
really use their tails for swimming much  (more for bracing when they eat   
trees from a bipedal stance), but platypuses do swim using their tails as   
well as webbed feet.

[I'd have started off by noting the manner in which frogs swim... -- MR ]

>Rabbits may be as bipedal as some dinosaurs that are assumed to
>have been bipedal.

rabbits are hardly bipedal, or is that your point?

>Apes have big, strong forward bodies, but they are somewhat bipedal.
>Man's proportions happened overnight because somebody noticed a
>niche for an ape that could stand taller and walk farther.

This "overnight' is not supported by any of the evidence for hominid   
development.    Perhaps a poor example?

 -Betty Cuningham