Notes on running large lizards over forceplates
Taylor Dick, SFU (probably didn't expect to be holding a lizard that big anytime during her stay). Anyone who has had the misfortune of stumbling upon this blog, and particularly those who have suffered through many of its posts might have noticed that one of the main themes is determining how muscle and bone strains change with body size and habitat among Australia’s giant lizards the Varanids (aka monitor lizards aka goannas aka large uncooperative lizards). Recently I had convinced Muscle expert Taylor Dick from SFU to come to Australia to study these questions with the eventual goal of building a musculoskeletal model of these lizards in the open-source biomechanics software OpenSim. She had already endured one trip out to the Australian desert in order to catch these beasts , but more was yet to come. Example output of the force plate from a dragon lizard, A. gilberti Force plate design, shown here without a plate on the top. Photo probably taken during