AL 129-1 a monkey, and decided to collect it. While he was writing it up, he noticed a few yards away a distal femur, the lower end of a thighbone. This was split between the condyles, or lumps making the knee joint. The other condyle lay next to it, and when he fitted them together and to the proximal tibia, the angle that the femur and tibia formed at the knee joint clearly showed that this was an upright walking hominid. This angular joint was in contrast to an ape, which has the femur and tibia forming a straight line. Tom Gray
Femur the bone. Some species of whales, snakes, and other non-walking vertebrates have vestigial femurs. One of the earliest known vertebrates to have a femur is the "eusthenopteron", a prehistoric lobe-finned fish from the Late Devonian period. Structures analogous to the third trochanter are present in mammals, including some primates. In invertebrate zoology the name "femur" appears in arthropodology. The usage is not homologous with that of vertebrate anatomy; the term "femur" simply has been adopted by analogy and refers, where applicable, to the most proximal of (usually) the two longest jointed segments of the legs of the arthropoda. The two