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Gliders in "flying niches"
Topic Started: Oct 15 2017, 01:45 PM (600 Views)
Carlos
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So lately there have been a few discussions on gliders not being as limited as previously thought. Sapeornithids are probably the most extreme examples, being now considered to be specialized soarers relying primarily on thermals, but there's also anecdotes of flying squirrels and gliders also relying on thermals and occuring in non-forest habitats like cliffs. Lastly, Argentavis might very well have relied primarily if not exclusively on the wind to move, lacking suitable musculature for take-off.

So maybe the possibility of large terrestrial gliders may not be that far fetched. For instance, I had an idea of camel-like mammals that occur in deserts and other open regions. They're incapable of powered flight, but can quadrupedally launch and catching passing winds and thermals.
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peashyjah
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The camel-like mammals that can quadrupedally launch and catch passing winds and thermals sounds like a very interesting concept.
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IIGSY
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Can smaller gliding animals like this also take advantage of thermals?
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Zorcuspine
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i have to wonder what the hell a camel-like glider would actually look like. Clearly you can't just take a camel, and stretch a web of skin between the limbs, then call it a day. It would have to be, both internally and externally, significantly different looking, even if it filled the same basic ecological niche.
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Fazaner
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Oct 15 2017, 02:59 PM


Can smaller gliding animals like this also take advantage of thermals?
It could happen, maybe with large enough gliding surface it is possible.
And that little fella is awesome.
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Carlos
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King Boom Boo
Oct 15 2017, 03:31 PM
i have to wonder what the hell a camel-like glider would actually look like. Clearly you can't just take a camel, and stretch a web of skin between the limbs, then call it a day. It would have to be, both internally and externally, significantly different looking, even if it filled the same basic ecological niche.

Not that far off in the camel like bauplan, actually, just maybe higher-shouldered to allow for the arms to be raised. Other ideas:

- Something like a "pterosaurian ungulate", with plantigrade hindlimbs and elongated, digitigrade forelimbs.

- A fully digitrade build with short metacarpals/metatarsals like a dog or a cat, with the emphasis being on the arms.

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http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/

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http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/

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IIGSY
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How much did pterosaurs (especially large ones) rely on thermals?
Projects
Punga: A terraformed world with no vertebrates
Last one crawling: The last arthropod

ARTH-6810: A world without vertebrates (It's ded, but you can still read I guess)

Potential ideas-
Swamp world: A world covered in lakes, with the largest being caspian sized.
Nematozoic: After a mass extinction of ultimate proportions, a single species of nematode is the only surviving animal.
Tri-devonian: A devonian like ecosystem with holocene species on three different continents.

Quotes


Phylogeny of the arthropods and some related groups


In honor of the greatest clade of all time


More pictures


Other cool things


All African countries can fit into Brazil
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Yiqi15
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Oct 15 2017, 04:11 PM
How much did pterosaurs (especially large ones) rely on thermals?
Probably a lot, seeing how doing so would more easily conserve energy for them
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Scrublord
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JohnFaa
Oct 15 2017, 01:45 PM
So lately there have been a few discussions on gliders not being as limited as previously thought. Sapeornithids are probably the most extreme examples, being now considered to be specialized soarers relying primarily on thermals, but there's also anecdotes of flying squirrels and gliders also relying on thermals and occuring in non-forest habitats like cliffs. Lastly, Argentavis might very well have relied primarily if not exclusively on the wind to move, lacking suitable musculature for take-off.
That brings up an interesting question, though. We almost universally refer to soaring birds and pterosaurs as "flying", even if they do not use their wings for powered flight. Yet we also say that flying squirrels and the like do not truly fly. Where, then, does one make the distinction between gliding and true flight?
Are flying squirrels truly not flying, or can they be said to fly just as much as an albatross or condor does?
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peashyjah
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Yiqi15
Oct 15 2017, 04:22 PM
Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Oct 15 2017, 04:11 PM
How much did pterosaurs (especially large ones) rely on thermals?
Probably a lot, seeing how doing so would more easily conserve energy for them
They probably do this by developing new energy consuming adaptations.
Discontinued projects:
The New Ostracoderms (i might continue with this project again someday)
The Americas (where in 58 million years from now in the future North and South America has both become isolated island continents)



All Expansions (my attempt at expanding the universe of All Tomorrows by Nemo Ramjet aka C.M. Kosemen, started June 6, 2018)
Anthropozoic (my attempt at expanding the universe of Man After Man and also a re-imagining of it, coming 2019 or 2020)
New Cenozoica (my attempt at expanding the universe of The New Dinosaurs and also a re-imagining of it, also coming 2019 or 2020)
All Alternatives or All Changes (a re-telling of All Tomorrows but with some minor and major "changes", coming June 10, 2018)
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Lowry
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Now I'm gonna steal this for personal gain to some extent but other than thermals, what other energy saving methods do flyers use? Do they have gaits similar to that of terrestrials with different efficiencies etc? Do different weight distributions in different regions allow gravity to do some of the work for them?
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peashyjah
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Scrublord
Oct 15 2017, 04:53 PM
JohnFaa
Oct 15 2017, 01:45 PM
So lately there have been a few discussions on gliders not being as limited as previously thought. Sapeornithids are probably the most extreme examples, being now considered to be specialized soarers relying primarily on thermals, but there's also anecdotes of flying squirrels and gliders also relying on thermals and occuring in non-forest habitats like cliffs. Lastly, Argentavis might very well have relied primarily if not exclusively on the wind to move, lacking suitable musculature for take-off.
That brings up an interesting question, though. We almost universally refer to soaring birds and pterosaurs as "flying", even if they do not use their wings for powered flight. Yet we also say that flying squirrels and the like do not truly fly. Where, then, does one make the distinction between gliding and true flight?
Are flying squirrels truly not flying, or can they be said to fly just as much as an albatross or condor does?
Double post: Flying squirrels are not truly flying animals.
They're more highly specialized for jumping and gliding from tree to tree, so basically they are gliding animals.
Discontinued projects:
The New Ostracoderms (i might continue with this project again someday)
The Americas (where in 58 million years from now in the future North and South America has both become isolated island continents)



All Expansions (my attempt at expanding the universe of All Tomorrows by Nemo Ramjet aka C.M. Kosemen, started June 6, 2018)
Anthropozoic (my attempt at expanding the universe of Man After Man and also a re-imagining of it, coming 2019 or 2020)
New Cenozoica (my attempt at expanding the universe of The New Dinosaurs and also a re-imagining of it, also coming 2019 or 2020)
All Alternatives or All Changes (a re-telling of All Tomorrows but with some minor and major "changes", coming June 10, 2018)
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Carlos
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Yiqi15
Oct 15 2017, 04:22 PM
Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Oct 15 2017, 04:11 PM
How much did pterosaurs (especially large ones) rely on thermals?
Probably a lot, seeing how doing so would more easily conserve energy for them


Most pterosaurs could glide, but all known pterosaurs have clear adaptations for powered flight. Azhdarchids in particular are rather overbuilt for this, and could have even flown like modern swans and bastards: continuous flaps for long periods of time.

Scrublord
Oct 15 2017, 04:53 PM
JohnFaa
Oct 15 2017, 01:45 PM
So lately there have been a few discussions on gliders not being as limited as previously thought. Sapeornithids are probably the most extreme examples, being now considered to be specialized soarers relying primarily on thermals, but there's also anecdotes of flying squirrels and gliders also relying on thermals and occuring in non-forest habitats like cliffs. Lastly, Argentavis might very well have relied primarily if not exclusively on the wind to move, lacking suitable musculature for take-off.
That brings up an interesting question, though. We almost universally refer to soaring birds and pterosaurs as "flying", even if they do not use their wings for powered flight. Yet we also say that flying squirrels and the like do not truly fly. Where, then, does one make the distinction between gliding and true flight?
Are flying squirrels truly not flying, or can they be said to fly just as much as an albatross or condor does?


Indeed.
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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Scrublord
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So which is it? Does that mean we should consider Argentavis--or even modern-day soarers like condors and albatrosses-- to be flightless birds? And if we do consider them to be flyers, does that mean gliding mammals are truly capable of flight as well?
Edited by Scrublord, Oct 15 2017, 06:48 PM.
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Dragonthunders
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Seeing the way in which flight is defined, I think not, honestly seems that the terms tend to be very varied, depending how people look at them.

As far as I understand, we commonly use the term "flight" as something exclusive to definde powered flight, but does not mean that this doesn't include some forms of "unpowered flight", like soaring and gliding.

Another way of looking at the powered flight is how we see endothermy and ectothermy, that is, flight could be originated by the animal (Internal powered flight) itself and soaring by external factors (External powered flight), in this case unpowered flight goes into a category apart as it is quite limited in time and distance, and it's just a descent trajectory.

It seems that in any case it is point of view and the way of defending things, though honestly, would not seem adequate to define a soaring bird as "flightless" because it doens't use its own movements, it can still take flight and stay in the air, or flying squirrels being equivalent to a bird that can soar and control its trajectory in a more advanced way despite the fact that such a bird does not depend on body movements to do so but on external factors.
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