Question

Bipedal locomotion is advantageous because it
A. Increases speed
B. Reduces body weight
C. Provides better support to body
D. Releases fore limbs for other purposes

Answer 1

Hint: Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an organism moves by means of its two rear limbs or legs.

Complete Answer:
Types of bipedal movement include walking, running, or hopping.
- Few modern species are habitual bipeds why Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an organism moves by means of its two rear limbs or legs.
- An animal or machine that usually moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped meaning "two feet" (from the Latin bis for "double" and pes for "foot"). Types of bipedal movement include walking, running, or hopping.

- Few modern species are habitual bipeds whose normal method of locomotion is two-legged. Within mammals, habitual bipedalism has evolved multiple times, with the macropods, kangaroo rats and mice, springhare, hopping mice, pangolins and hominin apes (australopithecines and humans) as well as various other extinct groups evolving the trait independently.
- In the Triassic period some groups of archosaurs (a group that includes crocodiles and dinosaurs) developed bipedalism; among the dinosaurs, all the early forms and many later groups were habitual or exclusive bipeds; the birds are members of a clade of exclusively bipedal dinosaurs, the theropods.

- A larger number of modern species intermittently or briefly use a bipedal gait. Several lizard species move bipedally when running, usually to escape from threats.

Hence the correct answer is D. Releases fore limbs for other purposes.

Note: Bipedalism allowed hominids to free their arms completely, enabling them to make and use tools efficiently, stretch for fruit in trees and use their hands for social display and communication.