Re: Gliders to Fliers? (Was Re: Ruben Strikes Back)

[dbensen <dbensen@gotnet.net>]

>>Nobody says bipedality is an adaptation >for< arboreality. Rather, it is a
natural outcome for an animal >previously adapted< to climbing, that has
essentially lost the locomotor aspects of its forelimbs and has taken the
easier route to a terrestrial lifestyle as a bipedal animal instead of
re-evolving a quadrupedal stance. This almost certainly happened with humans
(bipedality came before massive cranial enlargement and may even have
permitted it) as well as with theropod dinosaurs.<<

You say that the protohumans were bipedal at their earliest stages?  I thought
that they hadn't really become good at walking on their hind legs until fairly
late in their development (?)
I may be making an idiot of myself here, but aren't most monkeys quadripedal,
even though they live in trees?  In fact, most monkeys, especially the old-world
monkeys, always run on four legs when on the ground.

Dan