A brief history of vertebrate functional morphology

The discipline of functional morphology grew out of a comparative anatomical tradition, its transformation into a modern experimental science facilitated largely by technological advances. Early morphologists, such as Cuvier, felt that function was predictable from organismal form, to the extent that animals and plants represented perfect adaptations to their habits. However, anatomy alone could not reveal how organisms actually performed their activities. Recording techniques capable of capturing fast motion were first required to begin to understand animal movement. Muybridge is most famous for his pioneering work in fast photography in the late 19th century, enabling him to 'freeze' images of even the fastest horse at a full gallop. In fact, contemporary kinematic analysis grew directly out of the techniques Muybridge developed. Marey made perhaps an even greater contribution to experimental science through his invention of automatic apparati for recording events of animal motion. Over the first half of the 20th century, scientists developed practical methods to record activity patterns from muscles of a living, behaving human or animal. The technique of electromyography, initially used in clinical applications, was co-opted as a tool of organismal biologists in the late 1960s. Comparative anatomy, kinematic analysis and electromyography have for many years been the mainstay of vertebrate functional morphology; however, those interested in animal form and function have recently begun branching out to incorporate approaches from experimental biomechanics and other disciplines (see accompanying symposium papers), and functional morphology now stands at the threshold of becoming a truly integrative, central field in organismal biology.