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| Terror Bird from a Pterosaur | |
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| Topic Started: Apr 29 2011, 01:05 AM (870 Views) | |
| macgobhain | Apr 29 2011, 01:05 AM Post #1 |
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Ok, so I'm a little distracted right now. In figuring out different phylogenetic relationships with my animals it's been taking me outside my biome to explain where different animals came from and what they might be related to. So I love Terror Birds! Wow that felt dorky, especially to type it with an exclamation mark, but I really do. They're bad ass. The trouble is there are no birds on Calma, cuz if there were birds there would have to be dinosaurs, and we don't want dinosaurs. So what I've gone with is a pterosau-ish group of flying animals descended from dycinodonts like galepus. Now, I haven't really figured any of these creatures out yet, cuz every time I write about them I just have trouble picturing them and it comes out wrong, but they are some of the last vertebrates I need to explain in my origional biome. Now I'm interested in how we can make them pterosaur-like but still synapsid, and then if possible making them flightless. I really do love terror birds, and I want something like them to exist or have existed on Calma. The trouble is, this is one thing I just don't know how to do. Everything else just seems so easy I guess... |
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| magpie | Apr 29 2011, 09:56 AM Post #2 |
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I havent been on this site for long, but in this time I have learned a few things. One of them is that evolution happens for a reason. Therefore, one of the things you have to decide is why would a flying reptile evolve into a flightless one. Perhaps their food source found a way to escape the pterosaur by hiding, or it became too heavy to carry in the air, so they left the air to go after their prey? Another thing to consider would be the legs. If you look at depictions of pterosaur on the ground, they support themselves with their wings, and have weaker legs. Why does the change from smaller legs into large, terror bird legs take place? Apart from that, I think your idea is a good one. The beak becomes stronger to lift it's prey (what would the prey be?), the crest becomes shorter in order to support the beak, and the wings slowly become vestigial because of dependency on the legs. |
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| Holben | Apr 29 2011, 02:13 PM Post #3 |
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Many projects here have flightless pterosaurs, but they tend to move onfour contacts, with the wings reducing and the arms thickening to support walking weight. When pterosaurs were around, they walked on all fours, so flightlessness would probably have them staying on all fours for quite a while. However, this wouldn't allow enough speed for much of the prey that would be available, so perhaps they'd grow those back legs. But what would the intermediary stages be, and what would their benefits be? |
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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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| macgobhain | Apr 29 2011, 04:11 PM Post #4 |
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Lol I think you guys are thinking about this too hard. I didn't even think of making them bipedal flightless dycinodont pterosaurs. But now that you mention in it, if it's possible for them to be bipedal that would be even better I think. I have no idea what the conditions are on that continent yet. I'm sorry I can't post the pictures of the map cuz they're too big, but I don't even have them since their on my personal computer which is residing in Hawaii with my dad until I get there. This continent is called Sârikâin, and is where the ancestors of Sferaons come from, but it's been isolated for about as long as Antarctica has and is the size of Antarcica and South America connected, with part of it on the south pole. I want it to be very mammal free, like New Zealand or Zealandia, maybe even with surviving forms of my dinosaur replacement. What conditions could make a synapsid pterosaur go flightless, and even bipedal? Edited by macgobhain, Apr 29 2011, 04:12 PM.
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| Carlos | Apr 29 2011, 06:08 PM Post #5 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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Conventional bipedalism doesn't work on animals that have the forelimbs far more developed than the hind ones, unless it is for the "diving pterosaur" scenario that has been suggested elsewhere in here. Not to mention that quadrupedality is far more efficient |
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| Cephylus | Apr 30 2011, 06:11 AM Post #6 |
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Torando of Terror
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No, Magpie, why does a terror bird analogue has to be bipedal? The standard depiction of flightless pterosaurs in speculative evolution is that of a quadrupedal animal, something like a wingless azhdarchid. Like Johnfaa said, quadrupedality is far more efficient. A synapsid pterosaur would probably end up similar to our real timeline pterosaurs, they won't go bipedal, they would be quadrupedal, unless you have something like an arboreal therapodal mammal go flying, which is even more implausible. Better make them quadrupedal, bipedality isn't really possible. |
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| magpie | Apr 30 2011, 09:51 AM Post #7 |
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Ok, when I wrote that I was thinking of the bipedal terror birds, and working from there, instead of thinking of the pterosaur. By the way, how is quadrapedal more efficient. Bipedal is surely better (take humans, for example. Without going bipedal we would not be as successful as we are now!) |
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| Holben | Apr 30 2011, 01:42 PM Post #8 |
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Bipedality didn't make us faster or anything, it freed up our arms. The fastest land animals are all quadrupedals. It means you can contact the ground more, for a start, and reduces the load on each limb. |
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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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| macgobhain | Apr 30 2011, 08:46 PM Post #9 |
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well ok just to explore the option, cuz im pretty set on the the pterosaur-like form, what if my synapsid "birds" flew more like bats? would that be as efficient as pterosaurs on the flying end? and what would that change when they head back to the ground? |
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| Cephylus | Apr 30 2011, 10:27 PM Post #10 |
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Torando of Terror
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May I ask in return, how is bipedality 'surely better'? And what does sapience has to do with flying at all? Quadrupedality, for one thing, is more stable. Like Holben said, the fastest land animals are quadruped. And look at real flying mammals; bats. Quadrupeds. Is there any particular reason why a flying mammal would go bipedal? A flying biped should be therapodal, and a therapodal flying mammal is very unlikely. Being quadruped allows bigger sizes in flying animals, and is more efficient in the fact that the animal doesn't have to take the extra weight from the hind legs. A flightless pterosaurian synapsid would end up looking much like a flightless azhdarchid, see Darren Naish's Lank or Povorot's Terror Bird Azhdarchid, except, I dunno, it would have more 'mammalian' characteristics? |
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| macgobhain | May 1 2011, 07:02 PM Post #11 |
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yeah pterosaurs heads were very mouth-centric. And crest-centric. What would a flying synapsid's head look like? |
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| macgobhain | May 1 2011, 07:08 PM Post #12 |
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i just had a thought when i ran an image search for azhdarchids. i'm not saying this is what i'm gonna do, what i want to do is what makes the most sense. but pterosaurs would've had to turn their hands backwards when walking on the ground, so would evolving stronger hind legs be more efficient in the process of going flightless simply because they would not only have to devolve their wings but turn them forward to go quadrupedal? Don't let that distract you from the head question tho, just a thought. |
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| Cephylus | May 11 2011, 06:32 AM Post #13 |
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Torando of Terror
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Azhdarchid pterosaurs already HAD strong hind legs, perfectly stable on the ground, it's far more efficient than going awkwardly bipedal. I say bipedality in such flightless pterosaurs is near impossibilty, let alone being efficient. |
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| Spugpow | May 16 2011, 12:39 AM Post #14 |
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"Conventional bipedalism doesn't work on animals that have the forelimbs far more developed than the hind ones" Well, what about gibbons? What about our own chimp-like ancestors? |
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| Carlos | May 16 2011, 04:23 AM Post #15 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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Considering that even birds with appearently more developed wings have a higher leg bone density than wing bone density (even swifts, hummingbirds and nightjars), I'd say that apes engaged in bipedality probably have hindlegs better suited for the job than forelegs.
Edited by Carlos, May 16 2011, 04:25 AM.
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2:28 PM Jul 11