Re: Paedomorphosis ( Re: BARYONYX' CLAWS )

["Matthew Troutman" <m_troutman@hotmail.com>]

>> Flying fish, as I have said above, do not use their fins for 
flapping. >>Penguins, on the other hand, use them for basically the same  
>>purpose as flying, with the same motions, muscles, and bones.  

<<The medium is the message here. If the medium is water, the general 
term is "swimming." If the medium is air, the general term is "flying." 
When an animal>loses the ability to propel itself through the air, then 
it is called "flightless." These are my understandings of the terms. So 
penguins are flightless birds that can swim, and flying fish are fish 
that can both swim and fly. >How< they swim is a function of their 
anatomy. Likewise, >how< flying fish fly is also a function of their 
anatomy.>>

     I guess the reason we disagree with each other is our understanding 
of these two terms. What I am saying is that penguins, since they use 
their forelimbs in the same basic manner as volant birds, cannot be 
considered flightless in the sense of ratites. Penguins do differ from 
flying birds in that they do not need to create lift in their "flight" ( 
which is descended from aerial flight and the reason they do not need to 
create lift is that they live in water ), they do not have the typical 
avian limb kinematics ( a result of their aquatic lifestyle ), and their 
hydrodynamics is different from that of the typical aerodynamics of the 
typical avian flight ( though it is similiar aerodynamically to that of 
hummingbirds, low-level flight in birds, and insect flight ). But, they 
cannot be grouped with ratites because ratites and other flightless 
birds do not use their wings for functions similiar to flight and that 
the penguin wing is a modified bird wing that functions similiar to a 
bird wing and their swimming is similiar to flight in musculature, 
osteology, and function. Since the penguin swimming motions are somewhat 
similiar in humeral rotation and other features sited above, they can be 
considered in crude, basic useage of the term, fliers. Though they are 
flightless on land, does not mean that they are flightless birds 
similiar to ratites. They still have a basic, derived form of flight in 
their swimming.

MattTroutman

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