Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Speculative biology is simultaneously a science and form of art in which one speculates on the possibilities of life and evolution. What could the world look like if dinosaurs had never gone extinct? What could alien lifeforms look like? What kinds of plants and animals might exist in the far future? These questions and more are tackled by speculative biologists, and the Speculative Evolution welcomes all relevant ideas, inquiries, and world-building projects alike. With a member base comprising users from across the world, our community is the largest and longest-running place of gathering for speculative biologists on the web.

While unregistered users are able to browse the forum on a basic level, registering an account provides additional forum access not visible to guests as well as the ability to join in discussions and contribute yourself! Registration is free and instantaneous.

Join our community today!

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Any ways a Tetrapod can achieve powered flight without arms/legs?
Topic Started: Nov 2 2017, 11:58 AM (636 Views)
Mao
Member Avatar
Homo Erection
 *  *  *  *
I'm making a spec project, and I want to make an animal which can achieve powered flight, and I don't want to do arms tbh. so I want to know how I can make a Tetrapod that can achieve powered flight without limbs.

Oh and the "project" I mentioned is incomplete and will be released in a few weeks once I get planning done.
Edited by Mao, Nov 2 2017, 12:16 PM.
As of my gender, I have every gender imaginable, some even inconceivable to your minds. I have every gender in the gender spectrum, as well as ones you cannot envision.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Yiqi15
Member Avatar
Prime Specimen
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Um, Mao, just because something is cliched doesn't mean it no less plausible. Aside from arthropods, every creature that has can sustain powered flight uses its wings to fly.
Current/Completed Projects
- After the Holocene: Your run-of-the-mill future evolution project.
- A History of the Odessa Rhinoceros: What happens when you ship 28 southern white rhinoceri to Texas and try and farm them? Quite a lot, actually.

Future Projects
- XenoSphere: The greatest zoo in the galaxy.
- The Curious Case of the Woolly Giraffe: A case study of an eocene relic.
- Untittled Asylum Studios-Based Project: The truth behind all the CGI schlock
- Riggslandia V.II: A World 150 million years in the making

Potential Projects
- Klowns: The biology and culture of a creepy-yet-fascinating being

My Zoochat and Fadom Accounts
- Zoochat
- Fandom
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mao
Member Avatar
Homo Erection
 *  *  *  *
Yiqi15
Nov 2 2017, 12:13 PM
Um, Mao, just because something is cliched doesn't mean it no less plausible. Aside from arthropods, every creature that has can sustain powered flight uses its wings to fly.
well yeah.

The reason why that one group I made uses it's legs is that it doesn't have arms beside very vestigial ones.
As of my gender, I have every gender imaginable, some even inconceivable to your minds. I have every gender in the gender spectrum, as well as ones you cannot envision.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Dragonthunders
Member Avatar
The ethereal archosaur in blue

It would not seem so improbable depending on the anatomy of such animal, if it is something like a snake could hypothetically develop a membrane or a series of long fin-like structures derived from scales or muscles to develop a structure like wings. There should be an evolutionary process that justifies the development of such structures, which justifies why such an evolutionary animal such an unusual flight method.

Btw, and a little advice, the next time you have a short question of one answer, try to ask it in the topic of "Questions that do not need topics" please.
Projects

"Active" projects

The Future is Far
Welcome to the next chapters of the evolution of life on earth, travel the across the earth on a journey that goes beyond the limits, a billion years of future history in the making.

The SE giants project
Wonder what is the big of the big on speculative evolution? no problem, here is the answer

Coming one day
Age of Mankind
Humanity fate and its possible finals.

The Long Cosmic Journey
The history outside our world.

The alternative paths
The multiverse, the final frontier...

Holocene park: Welcome to the biggest adventure of the last 215 million years, where the age of mammals comes to life again!
Cambrian mars: An interesting experiment on an unprecedented scale, the life of a particular and important period in the history of our planet, the cambric life, has been transported to a terraformed and habitable mars in an alternative past.
Two different paths, two different worlds, but same life and same weirdness.




My deviantart


Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Terraraptor411
Member Avatar
Troodontid
 *  *  *  *  *
While its not true flight, the extinct reptile Sharovipteryx might have glided on its hindlimbs. Maybe an animal like this could start your spec project.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharovipteryx
Current Projects:
Alien Earth
Ultimate Pangea

Potential Future Projects
Future of the North Star: TBD

My DA Page: https://terraraptor.deviantart.com/
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mao
Member Avatar
Homo Erection
 *  *  *  *
Terraraptor411
Nov 2 2017, 01:45 PM
While its not true flight, the extinct reptile Sharovipteryx might have glided on its hindlimbs. Maybe an animal like this could start your spec project.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharovipteryx
I already have an animal that can achieve powered flight via legs.
As of my gender, I have every gender imaginable, some even inconceivable to your minds. I have every gender in the gender spectrum, as well as ones you cannot envision.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Scrublord
Member Avatar
Father Pellegrini
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
You could always go the Draco volans route and use rib-wings.
My Projects:
The Neozoic Redux
Valhalla--Take Three!
The Big One



Deviantart Account: http://elsqiubbonator.deviantart.com

In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado.
--Heteromorph
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
IIGSY
Member Avatar
A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Yiqi15
Nov 2 2017, 12:13 PM
Um, Mao, just because something is cliched doesn't mean it no less plausible. Aside from arthropods, every creature that has can sustain powered flight uses its wings to fly.
Are you implying insects don't use their wings to fly?
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
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Yiqi15
Member Avatar
Prime Specimen
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Insect Illuminati Get Spooked
Nov 2 2017, 03:15 PM
Yiqi15
Nov 2 2017, 12:13 PM
Um, Mao, just because something is cliched doesn't mean it no less plausible. Aside from arthropods, every creature that has can sustain powered flight uses its wings to fly.
Are you implying insects don't use their wings to fly?
No, i'm implying insect wings aren't limbs.
Current/Completed Projects
- After the Holocene: Your run-of-the-mill future evolution project.
- A History of the Odessa Rhinoceros: What happens when you ship 28 southern white rhinoceri to Texas and try and farm them? Quite a lot, actually.

Future Projects
- XenoSphere: The greatest zoo in the galaxy.
- The Curious Case of the Woolly Giraffe: A case study of an eocene relic.
- Untittled Asylum Studios-Based Project: The truth behind all the CGI schlock
- Riggslandia V.II: A World 150 million years in the making

Potential Projects
- Klowns: The biology and culture of a creepy-yet-fascinating being

My Zoochat and Fadom Accounts
- Zoochat
- Fandom
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Lowry
Member Avatar
ARH-WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
 *  *  *  *  *
Limb-based limbs have a lot of experimental features of them, I mean Sheather has done loads with different digit amount wings in Sheatheria. I've seen speculative creatures that fly using gills and one that I personally tried to explore, though not very well and ended up scrapping it, was the idea of flying via the ears. At the end of the day if you're looking for something unique going for groups that have more wiggle room, like a lot of invertebrates, usually allows for features like flight to be developed in ways that Tetrapods can't, so when speculating a flying organism personally I either use limb-wings for tetrapods or more exotic derivations of wing for any other group.
Projects Currently Being Worked Upon:

Karkinos: Where faith meets myth on a world of the strangely familiar.
Under New Suns: The forums own colonisation race! Steep yourself in my lore....

Projects in suspension (for when inspiration hits):

- Galapagaia
- Rich Man's Ark (nice little bit of community spec :P)
- Ichor

Projects for a latter day:




Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
LittleLazyLass
Member Avatar
Proud quilt in a bag

Something something horrifically derived hemipenis.
totally not British, b-baka!
Posted Image You like me (Unlike)
I don't even really like this song that much but the title is pretty relatable sometimes, I guess.
Me
What, you want me to tell you what these mean?
Read First
Words Maybe
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Lowry
Member Avatar
ARH-WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
 *  *  *  *  *
LittleWitch
Nov 2 2017, 07:19 PM
Something something horrifically derived hemipenis.
I remember you suggesting this for Hexapodal Dragons while I was a lurker
Projects Currently Being Worked Upon:

Karkinos: Where faith meets myth on a world of the strangely familiar.
Under New Suns: The forums own colonisation race! Steep yourself in my lore....

Projects in suspension (for when inspiration hits):

- Galapagaia
- Rich Man's Ark (nice little bit of community spec :P)
- Ichor

Projects for a latter day:




Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
LittleLazyLass
Member Avatar
Proud quilt in a bag

No, that was someone else, but that is where I got the idea here.
totally not British, b-baka!
Posted Image You like me (Unlike)
I don't even really like this song that much but the title is pretty relatable sometimes, I guess.
Me
What, you want me to tell you what these mean?
Read First
Words Maybe
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Lowry
Member Avatar
ARH-WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
 *  *  *  *  *
Eh well, misremembered
Projects Currently Being Worked Upon:

Karkinos: Where faith meets myth on a world of the strangely familiar.
Under New Suns: The forums own colonisation race! Steep yourself in my lore....

Projects in suspension (for when inspiration hits):

- Galapagaia
- Rich Man's Ark (nice little bit of community spec :P)
- Ichor

Projects for a latter day:




Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
LλmbdaExplosion
Member Avatar
Vieja Argentea the oscar cichlid
 *  *  *  *  *  *
By farting?That question sounds ridiculous.
When life give you lemons.............Don't make lemonade!Make life to take the lemons back!Get mad and than.........Yell,demand and burn down their homes.




Prepare for unforeseen consequences,Mr. Freeman!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Fully Featured & Customizable Free Forums
Learn More · Register for Free
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · General Spec · Next Topic »
Add Reply