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| Flying geckos | |
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| Topic Started: Jun 8 2010, 12:49 PM (2,094 Views) | |
| Carlos | Jun 8 2010, 12:49 PM Post #1 |
Adveho in me Lucifero
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I've pretty much overlooked modern gliding geckos all this time, when they are probably the reptiles with the biggest chances of going aerial. I invision future flying geckos as having bat like wings, derived as the membranes along the arms and legs fused to the flaps along the torso. The digits of tthe forelimbs, all with mebranes within them already, and with the thumb already clawless, would be all wing fingers; they could still retain the pads that allow them to climb, thus having the fingers still having the function of gluing the animal to a vertical surface in other to rest, or they could just loose them all together and instead rely just on their feet to stay attached, thus somewhat looking like bats when perching, using their hindlimbs to glue themselves to rocks or trees upside down. I doubt they'd go bipedal though, considering their anatomy. |
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Lemuria: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/ Terra Alternativa: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/ My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Carliro  | |
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| Ook | Jun 8 2010, 12:56 PM Post #2 |
not a Transhuman
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how about draco volans and his relatives?i think they have bigger potentional |
   
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| Holben | Jun 8 2010, 02:05 PM Post #3 |
Rumbo a la Victoria
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Take another look at weigeltisaurids, kuehnosaurus and friends? They could help, but aren't the same. |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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| Pando | Jun 8 2010, 02:58 PM Post #4 |
Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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You stole this right from the Postozoic, didn't you? |
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| Ddraig Goch | Jun 8 2010, 03:58 PM Post #5 |
Ar hyd y nos
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He might not have, necessarily. Great minds think alike, after all. 
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| Save the Blibbering Humdinger from extinction! | |
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| Carlos | Jun 8 2010, 04:09 PM Post #6 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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Not really, I haven't checked the Postozoic in a LONG time |
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Lemuria: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/ Terra Alternativa: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/ My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Carliro | |
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| Margaret Pye | Jun 9 2010, 07:13 AM Post #7 |
Adult
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Hmm, but would a lizard's metabolism and respiration be up to the demands of powered flight? (Course, you could always say they'd evolved a faster metabolism and more efficient lungs...) |
| My speculative dinosaur project. With lots of fluff, parental care and mammalian-level intelligence, and the odd sophont. | |
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| Carlos | Jun 9 2010, 08:26 AM Post #8 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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WIth time, they would become endothermic. Although flight would probably come before full endothermy; gliding would be aided by flapping, allowing the animal to cover larger areas, and as it becomes a better flier the metabolism improves |
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Lemuria: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/ Terra Alternativa: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/ My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Carliro | |
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| Margaret Pye | Jun 9 2010, 08:31 AM Post #9 |
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Adult
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Hmm, so what kind of improved breathing mechanism would you give them? (Monitors use gular pumping, right? I wonder what the maximum efficiency of gular pumping is...) |
| My speculative dinosaur project. With lots of fluff, parental care and mammalian-level intelligence, and the odd sophont. | |
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| Carlos | Jun 9 2010, 08:40 AM Post #10 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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Considering air sacs evolved multiple times among reptiles (dinosaurs, pterosaurs, drepanosaurs and sea snakes), I don't see why wouldn't these lizards end up with a system akin to that of birds and pterosaurs, and as in the later it might expand into the wing membranes |
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Lemuria: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/ Terra Alternativa: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/ My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Carliro | |
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| MitchBeard | Jun 9 2010, 10:37 AM Post #11 |
proud gondwanan
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What kind of insulation do you think would be most likely to evolve to help them sustain their endothermy? Fur again? Something unseen before perchance? |
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| Toad of Spades | Jun 9 2010, 11:05 AM Post #12 |
Clorothod
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Maybe the bristles on their toes spread to the rest of the body and increase in size. They would end up being covered in bristly scale/hair. The ends could have soft tufts derived from the forked ends of the bristles.
Edited by Toad of Spades, Jun 9 2010, 11:06 AM.
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Sorry Link, I don't give credit. Come back when you're a little...MMMMMM...Richer. Bread is an animal and humans are %90 aluminum. | |
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| Pando | Jun 9 2010, 01:14 PM Post #13 |
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Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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Geckos could easily develop fur and a 4 chamber heart - after all, it's been done a lot of times before. Fur developed several times in insects, once in synapsids, and once or twice in reptiles (in archosaurs and feathers in dinosaurs, but the fur could have a common ancestor). 4 chambered hearts developed in mammals and synapsids. |
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| Holben | Jun 9 2010, 02:25 PM Post #14 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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Just cos it's been done before doesn't mean it will happen again, we haven't evolved echolocation like so many mammals before us. Don't fall into THE TRAP! Which definition of fur are you using? |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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| Toad of Spades | Jun 9 2010, 02:43 PM Post #15 |
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Clorothod
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Under the microscope, mammal fur, insect fur, and pterosaur fur are very different. Just because they look like fur from an outward appearance doesn't make it actual fur. As for a body covering for geckos, I think a covering from toe bristles is more likely. This is because they don't have to develop something new, they just have to tweak something they already have. Edited by Toad of Spades, Jun 9 2010, 02:53 PM.
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Sorry Link, I don't give credit. Come back when you're a little...MMMMMM...Richer. Bread is an animal and humans are %90 aluminum. | |
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