Comparative research reveals extraordinary animal athleticism—mites lift >1000 times their body weight, mantis shrimp strike their prey with the force of a bullet, and peregrine falcons dive toward prey at 335 mph (539.13 km/hour) (1). Even human babies travel the distance of eight football fields per hour during free play (2). However, movement in the real world is not about being the strongest, fastest, or most active. Rather, effective action is a moment-to-moment process of matching the current status of the body to features of the environment (3). Locomotion—like other actions—must be tailored to local conditions. On page 697 of this issue, Hunt et al. (4) provide an elegant demonstration of the creativity of functional movement, showing that wild squirrels tune their leaps to branch bendiness and target distance, even inventing ingenious maneuvers when required.

比较研究揭示了非凡的动物运动能力——螨虫举起超过其体重的 1000 倍，螳螂虾以子弹的力量攻击猎物，游隼以 335 英里/小时（539.13 公里/小时）的速度向猎物俯冲（1）。在自由比赛期间，即使是人类婴儿每小时也会跑 8 个足球场的距离 ( 2 )。然而，现实世界中的运动并不是要成为最强、最快或最活跃的。相反，有效的行动是将身体的当前状态与环境的特征相匹配的一个瞬间的过程（3）。与其他行动一样，运动必须适合当地条件。在本期第 697 页，Hunt等人。( 4) 优雅地展示了功能性运动的创造力，表明野松鼠根据树枝弯曲度和目标距离调整跳跃，甚至在需要时发明巧妙的动作。