RE: 3 x Re: flight stroke (pretty short)

["Williams, Tim" <TiJaWi@agron.iastate.edu>]

David Marjanovic wrote:

> Maybe you are reinventing that :-) -- my prime objection is: how does the 
> animal get the idea (consciously, by instinct, however) of flapping?

An excellent point, IMHO.  AFAIK, only Ostrom's insect-net --> wing model
(since renounced by Ostrom) provided a specific behavioral pathway for the
forelimb's transformation into a wing.  Most other models posit that the
first flapping motion was instinctive and spontaneous.


Graydon wrote:

> Another is that _every other_ known arboreal vertebrate glider use a 
> sprawling posture, even the parachuting snakes.  

Every other other known arboreal vertebrate glider evolved from quadrupedal
ancestors - or legless in the case of snakes.  Birds, by contrast, evolved
from bipeds.



Tim