| The clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), an endangered felid native to Southeast Asia, is considered to be the largest and most acrobatic of the arboreal cats. Until now, most research has focused on its cranial morphology because of its long upper canine teeth. In this study, I analyzed its hind limb muscle morphology by dissection and by determining surface areas of the muscle attachment sites. These results were compared to those of the domestic cat (Felis catus). I hypothesized that N. nebulosa, an arboreal felid, and F. catus, a primarily cursorial species, would display some variations that may explain, in part, differences in their locomotor behaviors.A number of statistical differences were observed between F. catus and N. nebulosa, especially of the surface area analysis muscle maps. The F. catus had larger muscle attachment site (muscle map) surface areas for the muscles originating on the ilium, M. vastus medialis on the femur, and M. flexor hallucis longus on the tibia. N. nebulosa had larger muscle map sites for the rotator muscles on the ischium and femur (M. adductor magnus and M. vastus lateralis) and on the tibia (M. flexor digitorum medialis and M. tibialis posterior). Studies of primate, canine, and viverrid morphology have also observed these species-specific differences related to different locomotor behaviors. The muscle map surface area analysis may be useful for understanding the biomechanical differences in arboreal, ambulatory, and cursorial behaviors and may also be of value when analyzing phylogenetic relationships within groups of living and extinct species. The analysis may be improved by applying the Thin-Plate Splines Analysis and using a 3-D laser scanner. Using muscle map information derived from closely related extant species can be used to determine muscle attachment sites on bones of phylogenetically related extinct species with more accuracy and possibly shed light on their locomotor behaviors. |
