Frog locomotion has attracted wide scientific interest because of the unusual and derived morphology of the frog pelvic girdle and hind limb. Previous authors have suggested that the design of the frog locomotor system evolved towards a specialized jumping morphology early in the radiation of the group. However, data on locomotion in frogs are biased towards a few groups and most of the ecological and functional diversity remains unexplored. Here, we examine the kinematics of swimming in eight species of frog with different ecologies. We use cineradiography to quantify movements of skeletal elements from the entire appendicular skeleton. Our results show that species with different ecologies do differ in the kinematics of swimming, with the speed of limb extension and especially the kinematics of the midfoot being different. Our results moreover suggest that this is not a phylogenetic effect because species from different clades with similar ecologies converge on the same swimming kinematics. We conclude that it is important to analyze frog locomotion in a broader ecological and evolutionary context if one is to understand the evolutionary origins of this behavior.

Department of Biology University of Antwerp Universiteitsplein 1 B 2610 Antwerpen Belgium Department of Movement and Sports Sciences University of Ghent Watersportlaan 2 B 9000 Ghent Belgium

Department of Paleobiology Geological Institute Academy of Sciences 110 00 Prague Czech Republic

Department of Zoology Faculty of Science University of South Bohemia 370 05 Çeské Budejovice Czech Republic

Evolutionary Anthropology Duke University Durham North Carolina 27708 0383 USA

UMR 7179 C N R S M N H N Département d'Ecologie et de Gestion de la Biodiversité 57 Rue Cuvier Case Postale 55 75231 Paris Cedex 5 France Ghent University Evolutionary Morphology of Vertebrates K L Ledeganckstraat 35 B 9000 Gent Belgium

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