re: origin of bats/reply to J. Headden

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

David Peters (davidpeters@att.net) wrote:

<Unfortunately, Jaime, you're thinking only of upright bipeds. All bats are 
inverted.>

  They don't walk upside down, do they? Because if they did, that would be 
something. But from what I understand, even if they CRAB-WALKED sideways, this 
is a form of movement wholly unlike anything any other biped has ever done, and 
would result in different constraints on movement and NOT result in the 
features that all other bipeds tend to share. it would not, for example, result 
in anything like the pelvic and femoral features relating to bipedalism.

  Note that most especially, bats are sprawlers. They can only bring their legs 
into parallel while 1) in flight, and 2) while in suspension. This is not 
something that looks like they can do while NOT being forced into it by 
whatever environment they are in or attached to.

  Note that others have criticised this consideration of bipedalism in bats by 
constraining the topic to gait (or rather, locomotion), for which the nature of 
bipedalism is linked. Bats have no gait using solely the hindlegs, they simply 
hang upsidedown by them. Maybe they'll inch sideways on a branch or a ledge, 
but this is not a locomotion of any sort, any more than hanging by your hands 
and inching along is a gait. It would not provide a constraint unless, like 
oragutangs, locomotion was selected for in this fashion, and in this case, 
orangutangs move forward on their arms, not sideways a few inches, and cover a 
good deal of distance and using a good deal of speed doing so. This would be a 
locomotory style, and has its own gaits.

  Cheers,

  Jaime A. Headden