Tripedal

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(Latin tri = three + ped = foot).

Tripedal is the term used for any animal that stands on three legs, the term bipedal and quadrapedal is used more commonly when referring to animals that either walk on two legs (ie humans who walk upright) or animals such as dogs and cats who walk on four legs.

The term tripedal is rarely used if ever to describe the number of legs in which an animal stands on, since all land animals, birds, insects and even some underwater animals on the sea floor have an equally even number of apendages whether they be the eight legs of the common spider or the many legs of the centipede, no known animal has an odd number of legs that can be placed in the Tripedal category ^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Fictitious use of the term

The term tripedal would be more at home within a science fiction theme when such mysterious alien creatures walk upon three legs and on other worldly planets where all the human conventions of two or four legged animals is vastly different.

[edit] Tripedal use in Fiction

In the 2005 movie War of the Worlds the tripedal theme is ever present, again following the science fiction themes of strange and odd alien creatues the alien invaders from the movie walk upon three legs in much the same way their Tripods roam the Earth in their missions of destruction.

Back in 1997, fans of the popular science fiction TV show Star Trek Voyager, saw the arrival of one of the Star Trek franchises more formidable alien enemies known as Species 8472, these aggressors, who, when encountered are at war with the equally famous Borg, prove to be a most unusual alien creature to the crew of the Starship Voyager, again these strange aliens roam their ships and any potential enemies on three legs.

There are also Tripeds known as Muddlets in Deltora.

In the Rama series of novels by Arthur C. Clark, humans come into contact with a number of extraterestrial space habitats populated by many forms of life based on a tripedal theme.