Study of foot posture shows association between foot type and body size evolution in mammals

A quartet of researchers from the University of Tokyo in Japan and the University of Reading in the U.K. has found an association between the evolution of foot posture and body size in mammals. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Tai Kubo, Manabu Sakamoto, Andrew Meade and Chris Venditti describe their study of foot posture in a large variety of extant mammal species and their subsequent development of a phylogenetic tree.