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Re: flying Archie



Jim Cunningham wrote:

There doesn't appear to be any reason to think that. For a model, just look at
modern birds of similar aspect ratio flying in a speed regime where the
supracoracoideus isn't a major asset (medium speed flight).

I had this in mind:

Gatesy,. S.M. and Dial, K.P. (1996). From frond to fan: _Archaeopteryx_ and the evolution of short-tailed birds. Evolution: 2037-2048.

I wouldn't bet that Archie couldn't do that, if the opportunity and desire arose.

Me too. But Archie wasn't specialized for snatching prey on the wing, IMHO.

Why make the presumption that the purposes were limited? I'd expect that the
purposes were well adapted to the needs of the animal.

Poor choice of words on my part. What you said is exactly what I meant: Archie's purposes were well adapted to the needs of the animal.


Thanks for making this explicit. It is often overlooked. However, there is still one presumtion present. How about micro-raptoran style non-flying flappers, or micro-raptoran flying flappers, or whatever, ad infinitum.... The presumption being that these animals approached flying from gliding rather than from enhancing terrestrial and arborial (sp??) maneuverability. Neither presumption has been proven yet. Personally, I'm of the opinion that early flying was an all of the above scenario.

I agree. I was just using microraptoran-style gliders as an example. Microraptorans may have been quite versatile.


Cheers

Tim