RE: Microraptor was a competent glider (but nothing to write home about)

[Anthony Docimo <keenir@hotmail.com>]

> Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 13:43:56 +1000
> From: dannj@alphalink.com.au
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Re: Microraptor was a competent glider (but nothing to write home 
> about)
> 
> On Fri, Sep 20th, 2013 at 12:17 PM, Tim Williams <tijawi@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I like the fact that Dyke et al. do not advance _Microraptor_ as fully
>> arboreal - more as a terrestrial predator that opportunistically
>> climbed trees as part of a versatile hunting strategy. One intriguing
>> suggestion (raised in this study) is that this is how _Microraptor_
>> caught fish - by gliding down from a tree into a lake. (The same
>> might have been true for _Confuciusornis_, also known to have fed on
>> fish, and interpreted by some studies to have had very weak, if any,
>> powered flight abilities). However, it's unclear how _Microraptor_
>> would have actually seized the fish at the end of the glide -
>> presumably with the jaws, because all four limbs would still be in
>> aerial mode.
> 
> I'd have throught gliding wouldn't offer the necessary maneuverability to 
> adjust for a moving fish. 
> I'd imagine the low approach speed would give fish more opportunity to see 
> the predator coming as 
> well.

 Would this work in reverse?   (as I learned it, flying fish take to the air - 
gliding - to escape larger predatory fish)