CENTENNIAL HONORS COLLEGE
Western Illinois University
Undergraduate Research Day 2015
Poster Presentation
Range of Motion in the Appendicular Skeleton in Struthio camelus
Stefan Ososky
Faculty Mentor: Victoria Livingston
Geology
One of the problems in the field of vertebrate paleontology is so few bones have undergone the
fossilization process making it difficult to describe an organism. With no cartilage, no muscles, and no
skin we cannot know the true range of motion an animal might have had in its limbs. In an attempt to
illustrate this and to attempt to predict the correlation of cartilage, muscles and skin in determining the
true range of motion in avian dinosaurs, I measured the range of motion in Stuthio camelus (Ostrich) with
all of their feathers and soft tissues intact, with cartilage and bone only, and finally bone alone. Stuthio
camelus were chosen for being the closest living relative of extinct avian archosaurs (such as
Deinonychus and Velociraptor) and for having similar hip and joint structure compared to Deinonychus.
For this project Stuthio camelus chicks were primarily used for all three measurements along with one
skeletal adult due to their availability. Using a protractor with the degrees of flexion and extension of the
shoulder, elbow, hip and knee were taken with muscles, feathers, and cartilage attached. Then the chicks
were dissected and boiled for four hours at 250 degrees Fahrenheit to get the joints down to cartilage and
bone and the previous measurements were taken again along with measurements of the bones and their
processes. The chicks were then boiled for an additional day to get the chick down to just bone with the
same measurements from the cartilage stage.