Andrew Biewener & Sheila Patek 
Animal Locomotion [PDF ebook] 

Animals have evolved remarkable biomechanical and physiological systems that enable their rich repertoire of motion. Animal Locomotion offers a fundamental understanding of animal movement through a broad comparative and integrative approach, including basic mathematics and physics, examination of new and enduring literature, consideration of classic and cutting-edge methods, and a strong emphasis on the core concepts that consistently ground the dizzyingarray of animal movements. Across scales and environments, this book integrates the biomechanics of animal movement with the physiology of animal energetics and the neural control of locomotion. This second edition has been thoroughly revised, incorporating new content on non-vertebrate animal locomotorsystems, studies of animal locomotion that have inspired robotic designs, and a new chapter on the use of evolutionary approaches to locomotor mechanisms and performance.