Krogh’s principle for musculoskeletal physiology and pathology

August Krogh was a comparative physiologist who used frogs, guinea pigs, cats, dogs, and horses in his research that led to his Nobel Prize on muscle physiology. His idea to choose the most relevant organism to study problems in physiology has become known as Krogh’s principle. Indeed, many important discoveries in physiology have been made using naturally occurring animal models. However, the majority of research today utilizes laboratory mouse and rat models to study problems in physiology. This paper discusses how Krogh’s principle can be invoked in musculoskeletal research as a complementary approach to using standard laboratory rodent models for solving problems in musculoskeletal physiology. This approach may increase our ability to treat musculoskeletal diseases clinically. For example, it has been noted that progress in osteogenesis imperfecta research has been limited by the absence of a naturally occurring animal model. Several examples of naturally occurring animal models are discussed including osteoarthritis and osteosarcoma in dogs, resistance to disuse induced bone and skeletal muscle loss in mammalian hibernators, and bone phenotypic plasticity in fish lacking osteocytes. Many musculoskeletal diseases (e.g., osteoarthritis) occur naturally in companion animals, which may provide clues on etiology and progression of musculoskeletal diseases and accelerate the development of pharmaceutical therapies for humans.