On Sep 23, 2011, at 2:03 PM, K Kripchak wrote:
...seeing Microraptor and Sinornithosaurus reconstructed as
gliding animals was,
for lack of a better word, silly... They looked silly. A waste
of bio
material. Not one arm flap... not one... Just a lot of scampering up
trees and jumping into the air like lemurs or flying squirls with
outstretched arms to glide from tree to tree. It didn't look
right at
all.
Like I said, pointless observation in terms of science... but I tell
ya... it just didn't look right.
Having managed to get some stills from the series, I am at least
happy to see that the Microraptor model doesn't use an extreme
sprawl in the hind limbs. However, they hindfoils do seem
undersized and the limb position is still a bit odd, so I think
the animators may have struggled with the hindfoil situation a
bit. Still, a lot better than just about any other reconstruction
currently available in that regard.
Cheers,
--Mike H.
Michael Habib
Assistant Professor of Biology
Chatham University
Woodland Road, Pittsburgh PA 15232
Buhl Hall, Room 226A
mhabib@chatham.edu
(443) 280-0181