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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 3 January 2022 and 11 March 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Eric Heldt ( article contribs). Peer reviewers: Corginelious, Kleaslemon, Pancakes2022, Kyyylove.

Ok, so massive merger proposal, in which is suggest we ditch both prior pages and keep them here. Here's my rationale:

1) Both other pages are nothing short of completely awful, and I'm going to re-write the entirity of them anyway to actually include actual scientific knowledge on the topic, not just lists of animals. I'm going to include types of arboreal locomotion, anatomical specializations, biomechanical challenges, our current state of knowledge, etc. To call it a vast improvement would be like comparing the Great Wall of China to a child's snow-fort.

2) While animals *do* climb while not in trees, such as on rock faces, the basic mechanics of the system are the same. This will be acknowledged in the future text, but doesn't deserve its own page.

3) The current lists are just plain stupid. This adds nothing to anyone's understanding.

4) In the peer-review literature, 'arboreal locomotion' is vastly more common than 'climbing'.

5) 'Climbing' is technically inaccurate, since arboreal locomotion can include horizontal movement and descent, while 'climbing' implies ascent.

6) Technically, just using 'arboreal' isn't very accurate either. Plenty of animals live in trees, but don't move on them to any appreciable degrees. Consider most birds - they perch, and maybe move a bit here and there, but their primary locomotor mode is flying. Consider one exception, macaws, and how they move - a bird which exhibits true arboreal locomotion moves very differently from one which just perches.

7) I seem to be the only one on WP making substantial improvements to biomechanics articles anyway, especially given the failure of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#WikiProject_Organismal_Biomechanics to attract any interest.

Mokele ( talk) 17:12, 22 March 2009 (UTC) reply

Hi Mokele. Merging and developing these pages sounds like a good idea, you seem to know a fair bit about arboreal locomotion so my vote is go ahead. Might I suggest though that a more polite tone (eg. in points 1 and 3) will attract more interest. See the wikipedia policy on appropriate tone here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Please_do_not_bite_the_newcomers#What_to_do_if_you_feel_you_have_been_.22bitten.22

Regarding the article, what title would you suggest for the new merged article? It needs to somehow include locomotion in all directions on trees and rockfaces in a succinct way.

Looking forward to the improvements Nicolharper ( talk) 10:10, 24 March 2009 (UTC) reply

Scansorial locomotion could be a possible name for all the merged articles. Nicolharper ( talk) 10:17, 24 March 2009 (UTC) reply

Yeah, sorry about the tone, I'm just a bit cranky at the failure of a proposed Wikiproject on Organismal Biomechanics to attract any interest, meaning I have to make all substantial improvements myself.

I think the best option is to keep it as it is now, titled 'arboreal locomotion' and with a small section on rockfaces etc. This reflects the actual scientific literature on the subject - the vast majority of the work, far beyond 98%, has been done for arboreal systems or on arboreal organisms. Partially this is because the lion's share of the work has comes from physical anthropologists studying primates and the role of arboreality in human origins, but also because rockfaces actually have many of the same challenges, and often fewer (no impinging branches, for instance).

In short, I think it would be fine as-is, and links from rock-climbing animals can be linked directly to the section dealing with that. True, it's not general, but the research literature is massively biased, so this is probably the best approach. IIRC, the most references work on this topic, Cartmil's chapter in Hilderbrand's book, does the same thing - all arboreality, with occasional mentions that this applies to other habitats too. Mokele ( talk) 13:06, 24 March 2009 (UTC) reply

That sounds reasonable to me. Nicolharper ( talk) 04:36, 25 March 2009 (UTC) reply

I believe the previous version of climbing animals was a better introduction than the current Arboreal locomotion. Also i appreciate the work and references for such talk, i would ask to divide it to two pages! Climbing animals, like what it was before and Arboreal locomotion. Let me tell you that for me, as a climbing robot specialist who is not a biologist the previous page was more informative! I totally disagree with remove of the previous page. Please be patient and respect others point of view! If i want to write a page about climbing robots, just considering robotics interest i would discuss it in another way! But the previous devision of climbing animals was good enough! Therefore i would appreciate upoloading it again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MahmoudTavakoli ( talk • contribs) 13:35, 30 March 2009 (UTC) reply

Climbing animals did not have any information on it that this page lacks, had a vastly inferior scope and depth, and this page has FAR more information than either page originally had. The mechanical principles between the two are the same (problems of balance, incline, grip, friction, etc.), so there's no good reason to keep them separate. If you feel there's anything missing, please add it to the 'non-arboreal climbing' section here, but I think pretending that there's a substantial difference between rockface locomotion and tree locomotion is dubious, at best, especially in mechanical terms - a flat surface is no different from a tree trunk that's much, much wider than the animal. Mokele ( talk) 14:00, 30 March 2009 (UTC) reply

I exactly believe there are mechanical difference, on Arboreal and Rockface climbing! If you really go to the detail of the design, we always divide the robots to wall climbing and pole climbing robots. While there are plenty of differences on design, the minimum difference is the gripping part! It is very different! Sticking the flat surface or Holding it? This is an important question, which make a difference. So as you see, there is a difference between Arboreal locomotion and Rockface locomotion, however i agree that the rockface is not an appropriate name. These things can be discussed and i believe that previous page was not complete and had some errors, but it had a good and summarized categorization. I believe there is no sense to remove it, and we can discuss and edit it. So as i feel it was useful for me, and i have my hands on the design of climbing robots, i would say that the previous page should not be removed. So i would ask you to put it back, because there is no sense to remove a page completely without discussing it with others before. We need to consider different ideas from different specialists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MahmoudTavakoli ( talk) 14:51, 30 March 2009 (UTC)( talk • contribs) 14:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC) reply

I DO NOT AGREE THIS MERGE

The reasons are listed above!--
MahmoudTavakoli (
talk) 16:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
reply

Firstly, your "dichotomy" is an illusion fostered by only considering a highly restricted set of parameters. Consider a mouse on a branch equal to its body width. Now make that branch bigger and bigger. When you get to branches ~20x the animals body width, it's no different from a flat surface, and such instances are very common. A 'flat surface' is nothing more than a branch with an infinite diameter. This is actually dealt with in arboreal locomotion - claws vs gripping in the evolution of primates, use of adhesion in arboreal frogs clinging to leaves, etc.

What if we just merge both pages into "Climbing"? I feel "climbing" describes an activity, while "climbing animals" lends itself to just a list of taxa with no conceptual underpinnings. You can expand the "rockface" portion, and we keep the rest of the text like this. Mokele ( talk) 17:24, 30 March 2009 (UTC) reply

I do not have any serious objection regarding the division of the climbing animals to rockface and arboreal or just call all of them climbing animals. However it should be discussed. But i insist existence of the page "Climbing Animals". Which just lists climbing animals and just addresses the basic features. Of course Arboreal locomotion page is very informative, but "Climbing Animals" and "Arboreal locomotion" are two different themes. Is like the difference between "Athletes" and "Running"! And always it is useful to have a short categorization of techniques, as it is in climbing animals page. If someone need to have a general idea about the animals which can climb from the tree, probably he is not interested in the same time about "van der Waals forces". However The arboreal locomotion can be refrenced at the end of the "climbing animal" page.-- MahmoudTavakoli ( talk) 17:44, 30 March 2009 (UTC) reply

If there's just going to be a list, why have any text at all? Why not just a page that lists all the taxa, without the intro text?

Also, IMHO, the list should be at a higher taxonomic level. Species-based lists become huge, especially considering I can think of a single genus of arboreal lizard with over 200 species. Why not move it up the level of families or higher groups, to prevent it from becoming too unweildy? Mokele ( talk) 17:58, 30 March 2009 (UTC) reply

1)They need to find words that we all understand because if a little kid needs info on this animal and they dont understand half the words on this page then how will they get info because this is all facts and they kniw that, but they need to understand all of the words on it so that they can even get the info.

2) They could find some pictures or clips to help explain what they mean or even make a vioce recording and place it on this website so that we can listen to it if we do not understand the information on this page.

Comments: please do not get mad because we need to remember that this is only my opinoin and you might have another opinion thtat i might dis-agree with!!!! 24.239.34.146 ( talk) 03:28, 16 May 2009 (UTC) reply

The adaptation to climbing should be about how animals that spend much of their life climbing such as squirrels, monkeys, geckos, mountain goats and tree frogs are adapted. Whether it's a tree, a cliff or a wall, what an animal climbs has a great influence on how evolution has equipped it for the all important task of not falling off. Arboreal locomotion is specifically about those animals that particularly well adapted to spending most or all of their time in trees. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.185.240.122 ( talk) 14:41, 17 July 2009 (UTC) reply

Hi, I was reading the article for a paper I am writing but am having trouble accessing the references. They seem to be an exact replica of a reference list from this site http://www.museumstuff.com/learn/topics/Climbing_animals::sub::Arboreal_Animals, and at least one (Lammers, A.R. (2000) from Amer.Zool.) does not exist at all in the journal archives. I would appreciate any help with this or if some other references were available. Also, the text itself is not referenced, so it gives no idea of which information is from which source, and so is no help when deciding which sources to pursue for further relevant information. 78.144.175.205 ( talk) 13:30, 1 December 2010 (UTC) reply

Yeah, that's my bad. I wrote the article entirely from memory, and just slapped on a set of some of my favorite papers at the end. Wikipedia really needs to find a way to work with EndNote to make referencing easier. The best reference of the lot is Cartmill 1985, which is an excellent overall review of climbing in all sorts of species and in many circumstances, but it's a book chapter, so you'll have to go to a library (probably a university library, possibly inter-library loan). Lammers 2000 is an abstract from a conference talk, not a full paper.

If you go to my userpage (click on my name at the end of this), there should be a link on the left that says "email this user". Drop me a line and I can give more specific help, and possibly send you references directly. Mokele ( talk) 15:46, 1 December 2010 (UTC) reply

The etymology needs to be included. Curb Chain ( talk) 19:19, 29 September 2011 (UTC) reply

Since there are lots of links to Arboreal that has nothing to do with locomotion, I added a link to Wiktionary to the hatnote in order to provide what I suspect is a common cause for clicking an "arboreal" link: to answer the question "what is an arboreal animal?"

Technical note: Currently the hatnote is manually constructed to exactly match the Redirect and See Wiktionary templates. If you have the skills to combine hatnote templates to recreate what I did manually, feel very free to do so! Thank you, CapnZapp ( talk) 17:52, 19 May 2014 (UTC) reply

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It seems that some facts are lacking sources and some sections could be edited to sound better. Eric Heldt ( talk) 07:09, 4 February 2022 (UTC) reply