RESEARCH ARTICLE Range of Movement in Ray I of Manus and Pes and the Prehensility of the Autopodia in the Early Permian to Late Cretaceous Non-Anomodont Synapsida Susanna B. Ku¨ mmell1*, Eberhard Frey2 1. Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Morphology, Center for Biomedical Education and Research, Faculty of Health, School of Medicine, University Witten/Herdecke, Witten, Germany, 2. Staatliches Museum fu¨r Naturkunde Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany *
[email protected] Abstract OPEN ACCESS The mobility of ray I was analysed in seventy-eight Early Permian to Late Citation: Ku¨mmell SB, Frey E (2014) Range of Movement in Ray I of Manus and Pes and the Cretaceous specimens of non-mammalian Synapsida and one extant mammal. Prehensility of the Autopodia in the Early Permian to Late Cretaceous Non-Anomodont In all non-mammaliamorph Synapsida investigated, ray I formed a digital Synapsida. PLoS ONE 9(12): e113911. doi:10. arcade. The first phalanx was maximally extendable to the zero position in the 1371/journal.pone.0113911 metapodiophalangeal joint I. Metapodiale I was the functional equivalent to a basal Editor: Andrew A. Farke, Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology, United States of America phalanx of digits II–V. In contrast, there was no digital arcade in ray I in Mesozoic Received: April 22, 2014 Mammaliamorpha. Phalanx 1 I was dorsally extendable and metapodiale I was Accepted: October 30, 2014 functionally part of the metapodium. During the propulsion phase, autopodial rotation occurred in the majority of Synapsida with abducted limb posture. Published: December 17, 2014 Regarding ray I, the reduction of autopodial rotation can be estimated, e.g., from the Copyright: ß 2014 Ku¨mmell, Frey.