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Re: four winged Archaeopteryx
On Saturday, September 23, 2006, at 01:06 PM, Richard Cowen wrote:
The rigid furcula makes sustained flight difficult, but it doesn't
prevent flight as far as I can imagine. So I concede that one to
David Marjanovic. The flexing of the furcula acts to facilitate
respiratory pumping, so helps to provide the fuel-burning capacity
that powers sustained flight.
I forgot to mention this before, but it is also notable that some fully
volant birds have reduced or lost the furcula altogether. As such,
respiratory pumping via furcula elastic recoil is presumably not
important in all taxa. Several parrots, for example, have little or no
furcula left.
Cheers,
--Mike H.