From: Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: RE: Origin of flight
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 19:51:51 -0500
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Nick Page wrote:
A few months ago I was sitting in my garden when I noticed what I took to
be a rather dimwitted bird catching insects off the lower leaves of a
shrub.
[snip]
I then thought that a reptile with proto winglike forelimbs could do the
same job.
The more efficient jumpers and flappers would be at an evolutionary
advantage and get the most insects.
I wondered about this some time ago...
http://dml.cmnh.org/2003Apr/msg00446.html
The idea is basically a spin-off of John Ostrom's 1970's hypothesis of
pro-avians using their proto-wings and jaws to catch flying insects. The
big difference is that the insect-catching proto-bird presumably doesn't
have to work as hard, because the intended prey is sitting on a leaf, not
flying in the air. So it's essentially a difference between aerial hawking
and foliage-gleaning as the incipient flight behavior.
Cheers
Tim
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