General Climbing Strategies and Methods

Dewsbury, Donald A.; Lanier, David L.; Miglietta, Alexandra; "A Laboratory Study of Climbing Behavior in 11 Species of Muroid Rodents". American Midland Nationalist, Vol. 103, No. 1 (Jan. 1980), Pgs. 66-72.

http://dart.stanford.edu:88/Get/File-4739/RodentClimbing.pdf

The above paper discusses climbing experiments that were performed on a variety of species of rodents. The ability of the rodents to climb a wooden cone was compared to various characteristics of the rodents. Both tail-length ratio (ratio of tail length to overall body length) and hind-foot-length ratio (ratio of hind foot length to overall body length) were found to be positively correlated to climbing ability.

Jenkins, Farish A.; Krause, David W.; "Adaptations for Climbing in North American Multituberculates (Mammalia)". Science, Vol. 220, No. 4598 (May 13, 1983), Pgs. 712-715.

http://dart.stanford.edu:88/Get/File-4740/MultituberculatesClimbing.pdf

Short paper discussing evidence that multituberculates (now extinct) climbed trees. Evidence includes ability to rotate hind feet for climbing head-first down trees and existence of long prehensile tail.