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Re: Journal of Negative Results -- Ecology & Evolutionary Biology




----- Original Message ----- From: "evelyn sobielski" <koreke77@yahoo.de>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 4:02 AM
Subject: Re: Journal of Negative Results -- Ecology & Evolutionary Biology



........ M. might represent a primitive
morphotype/flight adaptation of the same lineage, but
how to get from something where the tail seems to play
a major role in flight, long, bony and feathered as it
was, to something where the tail's only significant
role in flight *might* have been that of a vortex
generator similar to its role in needletails today is
beyond wht I'd want to imagine.

Why is that?

It's also not a given that Archie was capable of
powered flight.

Ah, the eternal question... I'd put it "active" rather than "powered", because it was capable of a downstroke which near-certainly could generate significant lift. So there seems to have been a powered component to its flight, but how large that was is debatable.

One might keep in mind that even with limited upstroke musculature, substantial lift can be maintained through roughly the first "half" of the upstroke. I think the issue might be more closely related to the thrust-drag relationship in the latter stages of the upstroke.


All the best,
JimC