60秒科学:大型动物脚底硬（在线收听）

俗话说，体型越大，摔得越惨，现在我们知道了，体型越大，脚底越硬。

Big cats or wolves seem like scaled-up versions of the tabby or terrier sleeping on your sofa. But the proportions do subtly change as animals get larger. For one thing, big animals’ feet are smaller relative to their bodies than are smaller beasts’. But they compensate with physics, according to new research in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

When we think about animal locomotion…whether it’s walking, running, or just standing around…we usually focus on the bones and muscles in the legs and feet. But for four-legged critters, it’s the footpads that ultimately support the animal’s weight. So scientists [Kai-Jung Chi, National Chung-Hsing University, Republic of China (Taiwan) and V.

Louise Roth, Duke University] decided to take a closer look at these “natural shoes” in different-sized carnivores, including dogs, cats, wolves, leopards and hyenas.

And they found that the relatively smaller footpads of, say, leopards are much stiffer than those of little bitty kitties. Apparently so that the big cats’ feet can handle the stress of the greater body weight. If a tiger’s paws were as soft as a house cat’s, he’d need hippo-sized feet to stand.

It’s said that the bigger they are, the harder they fall. But now we know that the bigger they are, the harder their feet.

—Karen Hopkin

大型猫科动物和狼看起来就像是睡在你家沙发上的等比例增大的斑猫和小猎狗。但是随着动物体型的增大，他们身体各部分的比例却不是那么协调。首先，大型动物的脚相对于它们的身体要比小型动物小很多。然而，根据《 皇家学会界面杂志》的最新研究，它们的脚在物理上会有所补偿。

当我们在脑海中浮现动物的运动时，不管它是在走，跑，还是只在那站着，我们通常会注意到它们腿脚上的骨胳和肌肉。但是对于四只脚站立的动物来说，最终支撑它们身体重量的是脚垫。所以科学家们[中国台湾国立中兴大学的开荣志和杜克大学的威.路易斯罗斯]决定进一步观察这些“天生的鞋”，它们来自不同体积的食肉动物，有狗，有猫，有狼，有豹，还有鬣狗。

他们发现豹的脚垫相对要小，却比猫的脚垫硬得多。很明显，对于豹这样的大型猫科动物来说，它的脚必须要支撑得住更大体重的压力。如果老虎的爪子像家猫的一样软，它就要有河马那么大的脚才能站得住。

俗话说，体型越大，摔得越惨，现在我们知道了，体型越大，脚底越硬