Re: Microraptor hanqingi, new species from China.

["Habib, Michael" <MHabib@Chatham.edu>]

On May 25, 2012, at 7:11 PM, Augusto Haro wrote:

> 2012/5/25 Habib, Michael <MHabib@chatham.edu>
> 
>  
>  there are many other ways to use wings than gliding, even without powered 
> flight.
>  
> What would be these? I just imagine soaring, or some other function which has 
> nothing to do with aereal locomotion.

Control functions (turning, braking, etc), leaping, WAIR, etc


>  
> Incidentally, if it launch from the ground (huge if) there's no particular 
> reason to expect it ran to do so.
>  
> A jump would be better than running for a launch?

In most cases, yes, a jump is more effective.  Even most running launches 
actually end in a leap.  If you want to see quick and easy evidence of this, 
take a look at stills of launching waterbirds - if they were actually building 
up launch speed and transitioning to wing-dominated propulsion gradually, then 
the water displacement (i.e. splashes) would get smaller over the course of the 
run.  In actuality, they tend to be quite consistent, until the last one - 
which is nearly always much larger than the rest.  Animals do not launch like 
airplanes.

Cheers,

--Mike


Michael Habib
Assistant Professor of Biology
Chatham University
Woodland Road, Pittsburgh PA  15232
Buhl Hall, Room 226A
biologyinmotion@gmail.com
(443) 280-0181