As God is my witness, I thought sparrows hopped everywhere.
I was standing at the bus stop this morning, when a sparrow hopped around the empty corner of a store. It then picked itself up and ran.
Admittedly, it didn’t run very far, about a foot in distance maybe. But still, its little legs were pumping independently, just like the legs of a robin.
It then stopped and flew away.
Did I just see an evolutionary event? Sparrows don’t run, they hop! Has anyone else notice any sparrows running? I’ve never seen a sparrow run before.
In other news, I’ve just discovered that the Elmer of Elmer’s Glue is a bull when I thought he was a sheep. And also Elmer of Elmer’s Glue is the mate of Elsie the Cow of Borden’s Dairy Fame.
according to this, there’s no physiological restraint on small birds to either walk/run or hop. Moreover, big birds can and do hop but not to the same extent due to it being less efficient for their size.
I assumed it was like kangaroos, which are obligate hoppers on account of not being able to move their respective hind legs independently (although, I was certain there was some exception in one extant kangaroo species, but google is yielding nada).
Also, Elsie and Elmer had a comic book you can read here. I find anthropomorphic animals need a certain amount of abstraction or else the turn from charming to nightmarish.