having legs or structural parts adapted for running
Word origin
< cursory + -al
Examples of 'cursorial' in a sentence
cursorial
Cursorial spiders were the most abundant guild at both herbaceous vegetation and orange trees.
Ana P. Ott, Ricardo Ott, Vera R. S. Wolff 2007, 'Araneofauna de pomares de laranja Valência nos Vales do Caí e Taquari, Rio Grandedo Sul, Brasil Araneofauna of Valência orange orchards at the Caí and Taquari Valleys,Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil', Iheringia: Série Zoologiahttp://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0073-47212007000300017. Retrieved from DOAJ CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)
For example, it has been proposed that some ornithischians could run, while others consider that none were cursorial.
Susannah C R Maidment, Deborah H Linton, Paul Upchurch, Paul M Barrett 2012, 'Limb-bone scaling indicates diverse stance and gait in quadrupedal ornithischian dinosaurs.',PLoS ONEhttp://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3358279?pdf=render. Retrieved from PLOS CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)
Ordination reveals a similar pattern with arboreal and cursorial taxa as extremes on a continuum of morphologies in both analyses.
Francois D. H. Gould 2014, 'To 3D or Not to 3D, That Is the Question: Do 3D Surface Analyses Improve the EcomorphologicalPower of the Distal Femur in Placental Mammals?', PLoS ONE10.1371/journal.pone.0091719. Retrieved from PLOS CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)
Some character states are typical of some of these categories, especially arboreal climbers, fossorial and “cursorial-jumping” taxa.
Samuel Ginot, Lionel Hautier, Laurent Marivaux, Monique Vianey-Liaud 2016, 'Ecomorphological analysis of the astragalo-calcaneal complex in rodents and inferencesof locomotor behaviours in extinct rodent species', PeerJhttps://peerj.com/articles/2393.pdf. Retrieved from DOAJ CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)