How Many Legs Are Best?
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- Опубликовано: 2 июн 2024
- This is an important question.
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Have you ever wondered, ‘what is the best number of legs?’ I mean, probably not.
But how many legs a species has is vital to a lifeform’s success, and it’s time someone figured out which number reigns supreme. So, for this entry into the archive, we’ll explore every option for leg-count that nature makes available, excluding cases of genetic mutation or limb-loss.
Whether you’re reincarnating soon or a worldbuilder looking to improve the realism of an alien lifeform, this is a question you need answered…
0:00 The Best Number of Legs?
0:36 One Leg
1:58 Two Legs
4:37 Three Legs
5:45 Four Legs
7:21 Five Legs
8:07 No Legs
9:28 Six Legs
10:42 Seven Legs
11:45 Eight Legs
12:50 Nine & Ten Legs
14:02 Beyond
14:58 What’s The Answer?
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#CuriousArchive #Worldbuilding #SpeculativeBiology 
Развлечения
My cousin, when she was little, when asked how many legs a cat has, she said: "Five." Turned out she counted the tail as extra leg lol
now imagine a cat with four tails instead of legs, and a leg instead of a tail.
thank me later.
@@danijelovskikanal7017 wow that’s gonna be a nightmare
the rout of the KANGAROOOO!!!!!!!
At least she didn’t say 6 legs 😭
@@SonofMarZ ok
"but nature doesn't care what you think" is such a raw line
It absolutely is, I will use that from now on.
Raw and based
All laws of aviation say that a bee couldn't lift its fat little body off the ground but
@@dan_asd no law says that
@@dan_asd ???
Crabs, 10 legs. Two are used as pinchers, two at the back are used as flippers while swimming. Imagine they evolve one more time to convert another pair of legs to be wings. Truly the pinnacle of evolution
Shhh don't tell the crabs.
And don't forget that they can regrow limbs.
It's only a matter of time before the invasion of the spacecrab masterrace.
@@quitlife9279 WHY WOULD YOU GIVE THEM THE IDEAAA
@@tungsten2009 they still cant read right? Can they?..😱🦀📖
@@renacleerican7824 Uhhh I don't think so?
I'm surprised you didn't add spider monkeys and other animals with prehensile tails to the 5 leg count. Also, on that note, a seahorse could be said to have a single "leg" with its tail.
Tails just aren't legs no matter how you slice it
arguably, that would be five arms not five legs
@@CAMSLAYER13 how do you define legs in a way that includes human and spider legs but not kangaroo tails? also even if their tails aren't "true" legs, they do walk as if they are pentapedal, so it would still be a useful analogy
@@CAMSLAYER13 Tell that to the Kangaroo.
My guess is that tail use for grasping, hanging, and swinging isn't categorized as a leg use since it's not being used to move across the ground and/or support the body from below.
A similar reason as to why we don't call our hands legs when hanging by them from a tree.
I really like this more casual and humorous tone. It really differentiates this from a lot of the drier and more serious zoological content I watch.
Lindsay Nikole is another good funny one
ze frank
@@derrickcortes7703Le pew
try out casual geographic
tierzoo
It is worth noting that sometimes bears just.. randomly choose not to walk on all fours, for no apparent reason, but that's pretty rare.
I heard they do that if their front paws are injured.
@@justusb.plorer8773 That makes sense to me.
@@justusb.plorer8773 dogs with amputated front paws can do that
@@guizintheinsect5022 Oh, it doesn't matter which pair of limbs you amputate, they'll keep running. I once saw footage of a young boxer that had its hind legs removed, and proceeded to walk on its front legs while carrying it's body much like a theropod.
@@justusb.plorer8773 Like a theropod how?
I wish you had included mudskippers. I would put them in the three legged category, as they use a sort of tripod locomotion. It's interesting to speculate what fully land animals might look like if they evolved from mudskippers.
Certified Serina moment
@@dirandrous7682I see you're a man of culture as well.
I'd imagine a two-legged fish in the style of crocodiles (dragging) or dinosaurs (tail off ground). Their small size and muddy environment allow dragging of their bodies, which might maintain their amphibious lifestyle which would be difficult to translate to drier terrestrial settings (then again, toads in deserts...). I can see terrestrial mudskippers hopping like kangaroos too.
And technically parrots? They use their beak to climb, that could be considered a third limb?
@@Luna-ej4mi Some scientists have argued in favor of that specially regarding the flightless ones.
I was animating a crazy model with a lot of legs and tentacles, and researching the optimization of models for how much processing power it takes to animate them and I found out that the more bones a model has, the more processing power it takes to animate it. Which gave me a realization. Behavioral complexity tends to be inversely proportional to the number of limbs a creature has. With a few outliers like cephalopods.
Snakes: giga chad galaxy brain
@@drakep271 and fish
Loving your extra bits of humor and personality that seep into more of these videos, the bit where you just got frustrated at kangaroos for no reason other than they were in too many leg levels made me chuckle.
Wonderful that this channel took off over the last year and a half, I was personally here from I think around 100k, and it makes me happy that you have a great platform to share your love of biology, storytelling, and world building! ❤
I subbed back when it was around 15k and have watched every video, so glad it took off
Cheers to that 🎉
@@TechPriest97 I think that I subscribed at a little before the birding video.
Reminds me SO much of TierZoo. :)
This is what they are hiding from you and will NEVER teach you in schools 👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖
Thoroughly enjoyed both the scientific aspects of this video and the comedy.
Hi green skull I love watching your videos
Informative and entertaining... the perfect videoccombination
sphinx : "what walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon and three in the evening"
me : "Kangaroo"
And five at night.
You know, for even better stability, especially when they are drunk. 😉🤫
6/8 legs seems like the clear winner. One has enough limbs for fast and secure walking/running and can evolve 2 or even 4 limbs into arms to manipulate the environment. If they somehow become impractical, one can even devolve them into little stumps to get them out of the way. It has all the advantages, none of the downwsides and just seems like the best decision overall
Then it should be 10 legs then if you allow for evolving legs for other purposes, insects basically cheated evolving wings from another structure, but a crab that has 2 pincers and 2 paddle fins along with 6 legs probably maximised limb function as well as provided backup redundancy, the ability to regrow limbs is another massive bonus. So i think the winner is CRAB.
2 legs is the most efficient. A human with the right physiology can outrun anything to exhaustion.
@@UnitSe7en what about horses? They are basically cars
@@yonathanraviv1063 The energy use of 4 legs is less efficient than 2. Horses have a lot of stamina and strength, though. This holds true except in some special cases of unique locomotion and gait such as the cockroach. Even changing gaits such as a horse moving from a trot to a canter or gallop changes the efficiency, but 2 is still better in ratio.
Humans walk by literally falling forward and moving our legs to prevent us falling over. We don't have to locomote so actively to physically move along. We fall, not walk.
@@UnitSe7en That's not walking-It's falling with style!
David Weber's Honorverse has a very interesting example in the first book, _On Basilisk Station._ The Medusans are described as having trilateral symmetry with three legs and three arms with a seemingly unnatural (from the human perspective anyway) way of moving.
Interesting. Is it like a Bestiary thing, or a full Mythology situation?
@@thalmoragent9344 sci-fi novel, first book in a series
@@thalmoragent9344 It's been awhile, but to my recollection they're pre-industrial aliens that just so happen to live in a very strategically important star system. Not a major factor in the series.
IIRC there's a trilateral extinct species in Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy as well. And Larry Niven's Ringworld has a bilateral tripod species.
@@IainG10
Niven's puppeteers are trilateral
In one of the old Avatar games, the player could ride and fight with a thanator (those big panther-like creatures that Neytiri rides at the end of the movie). I found the attack animation super interesting -- the thanator rears up with its first front legs and uses them to swipe at its target. The second pair of front legs and the hind legs stay on the ground. I imagine that gives the thanator great stability while still allowing it to use its paws to attack
While that sounds cool and definitely works for a feline-like creature, I think the paw swipes would be even gain more power and reach if the front limbs were more independent from their middle limbs (maybe this is the case already in their design, I dunno) like with praying mantises. Well maybe this arrangement would've compromised their walking and pouncing, there must be a good reason why hexapods thrive in Pandora's environment.
Oh, that avatar...I thought you meant the other one.
@@biomutarist6832 Having a six-legged house cat would be so cool! I used to have a polydactyl cat with 20 toes.
So many good lines in the first few minutes alone
"Whether you're reincarnating or world building", "Nature doesn't care what you think", "If you oiled your foot and shuffled around you wouldn't get far either"
Artistic and comedic genius.
The shuffling analogy for the snail is amazing pedagogy, too.
"if you could hang around in a rock all day and have food come to you, would you be in a hurry to go anywhere?" hahahah. A reasonable basis for sedentarism.
I've always counted elephants and long tailed monkeys as five-limbed, but four-legged creatures.
an elephant's trunk is essentially a hand, and the monkey's tail let's them hang from a branch while using their four limbs as hands.
i also guess if you broaden the category of what a "limb" is, a chameleon would either be a five or six-limbed creature considering the prehensile tail and the retractile tongue
@@HallucigeniaIV Humans can absolutely also do interesting things with their tongues.
I did too consider them five lined since early childhood.
A six legged creature becoming four-legged, becoming a centaur like creatures, a great all-rounder. But anyways great video as usual.
Yeah, seems like a pretty good deal
It makes more sense than traditional centaurs.
Possibly, but that would require a lot more energy than just four limbs.
@@tootbender6935 But is fast and stable.
Are multiple headed animals like hydra and some dragons biologically possible ?
I love how during the crab section he sounds like he's holding back laughter.
"Forget creature, become crab."
I teach a tutorial on creature design from a biological standpoint at uni and I use your vids as a starting point for my students - really love these and your humour! It really gets them thinking about what they know about biology from a more out-of-the-box angle.
This needs to be a TV show, your documentary-style videos are greatly appreciated!
This is the question we all needed the answer to. Kangaroos are OP
Evolutive plot armor 😂
As a human individual, all I can say is that two of them are pretty dope
As a human individual, all I can say is that having three legs also has its advantages and disadvantages
As a kangaroo individual, I can tell you guys are missing out
As an Eumilipes individual, all I can say is that having 1,306 legs is pretty dope
As a beetle,i am 100% sure that we are cool
@@SonKunSama Is that a third leg, or are you just happy to see me?
This one is WAAAY more casual more casually scripted than your other content and honestly I'm really digging it, your humor is great and you don't have as many opportunities to do it when you are taking a serious look into someones spec-evo project. Though obviously I still LOVE your more standard videos too!
So glad to see this incredible channel hit the half-a-million milestone. I remember chiming in at the "All Todays" video almost 2 years ago. Keep up the great work, and I can't wait for more entries into the archive!
Never skip leg-day lads
Cant skip lega if you dont include them in your plan
One big benefit of two legs is that it makes walking more efficient. You simply have to lean forward and then move a leg to catch you.
It's falling, with style!
But bouncing like some disqualified animals I won't name is more efficient than falling and catching like we do. They conserve a lot of energy from one bounce to the next. As arm wrestlers would say: Use bone strength instead of muscle strength.
you can also wank with the arms
It’s not about efficiency.
It's all about the build. If you spec heavy into Intel you can get away with two or less legs. If you do a speed or crawl or stealth it's 4 legs and up depending on a few other factors and your play style etc etc.
I remember having an idea for a fantasy race that was intelligent cuttlefish who can travel on land by riding in humanoid clockwork robot suits with fishbowls for heads (complete with tiny levers they can pull to manipulate the robot). For the design of the robot suit, I wanted the "shoulders" and "pelvis" to be these rings that could rotate freely all the way around, each one equipped with three limbs. When walking forward, the pelvic ring rotates endlessly, constantly bringing one leg to the front while sending another leg to the back. It can rotate in either direction, but each individual typically develops a preferred direction. The suits are naturally design to also be good swimmers, with both rings rotating and the limbs acting like boat propellers.
Personally feeling 4-6. No matter the content its always intresting and inspiring.
10:31
Arthropods 359 million years ago: "allow us to Introduce ourselves"
Congrats on going well past the half million mark - I always look forward to your posts. Your presentation of the material is always well researched and fascinating, your quirky sense of humour fits well with my own, but above all, you have a fantastic voice - always a pleasure to hear you speak.
very big props to your creativity and just fun original content youve been making ive been really enjoying it and it shows you have been at this for a while. 500k very well deserved
No one:How many limbs does a kangaroo have?
CA: … Yes.
The thumbnail is more cursed than my meme folder.
8:54 I'd argue that sarcopterygians also have legs, or at least the precursors to legs seen in all tetrapods. So technically, all tetrapod limbs are just weird fins.
I literally thought to myself earlier today "How many legs would be the best?" and I come home to find this wonderful video, thank you so much for answering my odd question. I love this style of video and I'm so glad I found your content, congrats on 500k!
One of your best videos! The writing paired with the narration was hysterical. Keep up the amazing work!
The almost shade thrown at the swimming crab really got me
Love the whimsical videos thrown in between the more “regular” ones
I would also put mudskippers in 5-leg category as they use all four paired fins and their tail to support their weight.
It's amazing seeing you grow as a channel so much! I subbed at I think when you were at a 150k subs, and I love your content, congratulations on 500k subs!
The bits of humour in this video are truly amazing and definitely brightened up my day, thanks :)
Stands out from the often overly serious zoology content on the platform
I love your usual content, but this video seems like the most fun you had writing a script in a long time! Keep it up dude x
This channel masterfully scrathces a hyper-specific itch.
And it happens to be just the itch that I'm lacking a limb to scratch.
The kangaroo hate was hilarious
My favorite channel on youtube!
CA's content is amazingly smart, diverse, dreamy, philosophical, funny, beautifull, disturbing, inspiring, surprising,...
Thank you for your good work, your channel is unique and really educative.
Though I loved so much the speculative vids and the weird worlds created by talented creators you revealed to us.
So glad to see your channel growing more and more everyday, you really deserve that ❤
Those kangaroos are trying too hard to be in all categories of walking
Curious Archive is the spiritual successor to Vsauce. This video proves it
I'm loving these kinds of videos, where you get to be more experimental
man, the sooth-ness of your videos and voice is so good. always has been
im so glad you make these videos because i love world-building and i always end up googling things that i cant get an answer for and thanks to videos like this one i can make my creatures as realistic as possible!
I feel like this is more of his own thing, it's a lot more casual and feels like he's directly talking
i really enjoy the chill tone and light hearted humor you videos some times have. im all for deep dives that give a serious tone, but tossing in the occasional joke puts a smile on face aswell 😄
Loving your extra bit of humor and personality that was in this
Octopedal land animals. I've been trying to figure out what a large, non-invertebrate creature with eight legs would look like.
Maybe a weasel like creature with four legs on each side of its body?
A taur-taur
I think the create would have to be really long for the legs to not get into their own way. Bugs seem to get away with it because their legs are really thin compared to the rest of their body. But a body that has bones and muscles and possibly fur, would need thicker legs.
Basically like animal in Biblaridion's world.
Asking life's real questions
Wow! I loved this! I only wish that it could come when I was having a bad week earlier. But still, some of the greatest content on the internet!
Excellent video! Congratulations on the 500k mark. Long time sub, via a couple accounts. I love this format, So much opportunity... number of hearts, fingers, heads, brain lobes... Weaving in the speculative with the natural and the supernatural makes this really fun.
0:08 I'm a furry with taur-styled characters, I ponder that question practically daily.
true and real
I love this kind of content, keep up the good work, ❤
I am so glad your channel get the hype u deserve. Great work mate, listen to since you got a few thousend members. Coongratulations
Found the channel a few months back. Subbed immediately and look forward to all your uploads, love this channel.
Loved the humor and perspective. Asking the important questions! It got me wondering how and why fur is a thing.
Because cold, and also because hot.
because pimps needs coats
Old RUclips humor vibes, calling this as an instant classic
I do love that Alex Ries was responsible for more or less all the cool alien concept art, he's such a cool guy
I really like the more humerous approach when it comes to slighty less serious videos
"Have you ever wondered what is the best number of legs? I mean probably not.."
YES, actually, I did think about exactly that, just last night before sleep!
Thank you for making this video! XD
I've always liked to consider manta rays as technically hexapods, since they have the two fins at the front that help with eating, two large fins for swimming, and two more small fins at the end of their bodies that help with steering and mating
Congratulations! Thanks for making these videos, there awesome
a beautifully produced and nicely done mini doco. thank you : )
As a perfectionist spec bio person, yes I've wondered what's the best number of legs. I keep telling myself not every creature has to be super optimized; they can have features that aren't the best. Bad brain.
I mean, a lot of creatures aren't optimized. Evolution isn't about what's perfect, but about what's good enough. And even then, natural selection works in a way that even if a creature could theoretically be better, it might not be able to get there because in the process of getting better, it would need to become worse first. If there's no viable way to go from "good" to "better", then a creature will just stay "good", which results in creatures that aren't perfect, just good enough. E.g. insects evolving lungs. Firstly, dear God please no, but secondly, even though they'd be better for it, for a long while they'd have non-functional half lungs, and that's a lot of energy and nutrition that could be used for something else. With how successful arthropods are, and even were in the entire history of earth, the only reason they aren't the dominant form of organism on earth is because of their respiratory system.
The best number depends on their environment
@@TheMasterofBlu don't spiders have lungs OTOH?
@@revimfadli4666 no I'm pretty sure they breathe the same way insects do
Also, could you please clarify the meaning of "OTOH" ?
Never seen that before so I'm interested to know what it stands for
@@TheMasterofBlu It stands for "on the other hand"
I always literally ask myself this question so i NEED this video
I like the new way of content presentation! It's dabbling between humorous and educational so it's more fun to watch. Great job Archivist~~!
It was funny, it was informative, an all around well researched, written and edited video, great work!
thanks for your stuff
Yay! Still sick, so this made my otherwise kinda bad day
I love this channel so much. Happy to be here for 500k 🥰
The fact that the Tribbets are a major lineage of animals with 3 limbs is one of the unique concepts I really enjoy within the Epic of Serina.
"The event horizon of legs"
I love it!
I was jut thinking about this today! I like being a biped, but I'd love to have an extra set of arms and hands. I also generally like the kangaroo body plan, because the tail is useful for balancing and being able to do epic kicks.
I love your videos. Your voice is so relaxing and clear sounding!
Congrats on the milestone!
The dinosaurs were an interesting additions to the two leg/four leg categories.
They originally evolved to be bipedal but many groups go back to quadrupedal. Especially sauropods.
@@ExtremeMadnessX Isn’t it strange that saurischians and sauropods evolved quadrupedal forms, while theropods were (and are still are) completely bipedal.
Babe wake up new curious archive video just dropped
I count a leg as this: It can move, support the body, and spends MOST of it's time on the ground/moving.
This was a lot of fun, I love the script in this one!
I like this new, slightly less formal scripting :)
2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 are the most successful so the best number of legs is an even number between 2 and 10.
this is surprisingly a question i've asked myself before, thanks for answering
I've been thinking about this lately! Thanks for making a video on it :>
Clicked faster than the fastest set of legs
Saw the title of the video, and had to immediately subscribe. A question so simple and essential, yet so illusive.
This video just appeared in my RUclips feed and the title really drew me in because I have pondered a similar leg question. I have a lifelong almost-phobia of spiders, but other creepy crawlies don't bother me at all. I love snakes and pretty much every other animal too. So I guessed I have a mental block or something like that toward 8 legged beings. I actually held my hands up during the 8 legged section of this video so I couldn't see the spiders. But I enjoyed your commentary throughout and I'm going to check out your other videos. ❤
The Archivist talking about humans gave me the same feeling as seeing my own country being talked about in foreign media
i guess we know the real answer to the riddle of the sphinx , its a kangaroo
Lets gooo!
Congrats for all the subs!
Love from Finland
This was an amazing video!!!
Thumbnail belongs in a studson studio video
Never clicked a video so fast
You deserve this W mate, and here's to more!
I love how excited he sounds in this video, especially at the start of 10 legs
You're narration is really funny, great video.
P.D: Kangaroos are such cheaters xD