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Gliders in "flying niches"
Topic Started: Oct 15 2017, 01:45 PM (601 Views)
IIGSY
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A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
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Can that spider I showed you be considered "flying" by even the most generous definition?
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Bob-The-Seagull-King
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I believe to be flighted to organism must be able to naturally propel itself upwards. Those thermal-using pterodactyls would have been able to propel themselves upwards on their own, but it just cost a lot of energy and thusly would need to use said thermals to be able to survive.

So unless that spider can propel themselves upwards of their own accord, I would say they are gliding, not flying.
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Mao
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Scrublord
Oct 15 2017, 06:46 PM
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?
Lmao I don't like where this is going.
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Lowry
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ARH-WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Mao
Nov 1 2017, 05:34 AM
Scrublord
Oct 15 2017, 06:46 PM
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?
Lmao I don't like where this is going.
What did that comment add to this conversation?
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Pangolin12
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Scrublord
Oct 15 2017, 06:46 PM
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?
Depends- do we define flight as sustained but not necessarily powered, movement through the air? If so, that introduces a bunch of semantics about what counts as “sustained”. If not, then as you said, animals which are traditionally considered flying might no longer fit the definition. the dictionary definition of flight is:

the action or process of flying through the air.

However, this doesn’t seem great. If I jump in the air, I fit the definition of flight, but should that really count as flying? And how do we define “flying”? As it turns out, the definition of “flying through the air is:

moving or able to move through the air with wings.

Still not great. If I jump with wings taped to my back, I still don’t think that should count as flying. It might be best if people propose some definitions of flying, then we vote on it so we can settle this issue.
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