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Anonymous
question for yall nature nuts...

one question I've always thought about is whether or not it would be possible to have a set of hands, and a set of wings.
From my knowledge, all animals I know of, the wings are their hands, or the wings replace their hands...

Is there a creature that has a set of hands, AND wings? or would this even be possible biologically/scientifically/physiologically?

If you need an example of what I'm talking about, think of the standard image of an angel. They have wings on their back, AND hands....

pic unrelated, but laughable for its hilarious existance.
>> Anonymous
bat hands evolved into wings...
>> Anonymous
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>>193666
Found one!
>> Anonymous
Depends on if European dragons and gryphons existed.
>> Anonymous
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>>193675
I've thought about bugs, and read up about that a little....
issue is bugs are desgined completely different. Aparently each segment of a bug, such as the thorax and abdomen, often have their own pair of wings/hands. Its kind of like having two or more ribcages sectioned off from each other I think.

aaanywho, long story short I don't think they count :(

my biggest wonders are:
A) how would the muscles for the wings overlay or underlay with the muscles for all the other hand/body-related muscles?(abdominals, shoulder muscles, etc.)
B) Would a spine be able to support an extra bone/muscle system that was not the normal set of hands which would often have to hold a large amount of weight?

look at this fine mythological fellah...he somehow managed to figure it out, too bad hes fictional to our knowledge
>> Anonymous
There isn't anything to prevent an extra pair of limbs per se, but the way evolution works, it's practically impossible to occur naturally. We have four limbs because our ancestors had four paired muscular fins. Had we evolved from a fish with three pairs of fins, we would most likely have three pairs of limbs. But it has to start somewhere where the extra pair doesn't become a liability, so that it gets passed to the next generation and so on. After that the "extra" limb pair becomes an integral part of the anatomy and all the other parts will co-evolve with it.
>> question for yall nature nuts... freude
Flight requires adaptations and sacrifices.
Wing muscles must be attached to a wishbone in the front of the chest cavity, creating a bony ridge between the breast. This can not interfere with arm function while in flight.
The beating of the wings would pump lung action.
Bones would have to be hollow to save weight.
>> Anonymous
>>193745
You are of course aware that birds aren't the only flying vertebrates, right? Ever heard of bats with wishbones and hollow bones?
>> Anonymous
>>193745,

>>193751has a point. Hollow bones make it easier to fly, they're not required.
>> Anonymous
Actually, most of the wing muscles on birds anchor to the keel on their sternum. The same with bats and pterosaurs.
>> Anonymous
dragons bitch
>> Nyarlathotep
Trogdor??
>> Anonymous
bats have lil' hook hands on their wings...if that counts
>> Anonymous
>>193843
Actually no. Bats are remarkable in having no keeled sterna either. Pterosaurs and birds on the other hand share several features: hollow bones, keeled sterna and a notarium formed from the fusion of shoulder vertebra (no furcula in pterosaurs, though). What this tells us is that bird and pterosaur flight (despite differences in the wing structure) utilized mainly the same muscles in the chest, while bat flight is clearly different.
>> Anonymous
OP has no respect for kiwis
>> Anonymous
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lawl, found another
>> Anonymous
>>194675
does it actually fly?
cause it looks like it glides....
>> Anonymous
>>194830
Nah. Only three vertebrate groups have achieved true flight: pterosaurs, birds and bats. Lots of other animals glide.
>> Anonymous
>>194832
TERY DACTYLS?!
>> Anonymous
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Biologically it is possible. Many bugs have this, and there was a lizard long ago that could actually fly. It just hasn't happened yet in the evolution of higher animals. Probably because it's not a high priority to have more hands when flight already frees up the feet.

Xianglong zhaoi extinct flying lizard from china.
>> Anonymous
What about kuehneosaurus?
>> Anonymous
Yeah kuehneosaurus could fly as well. Probably some people don't count those flying lizards, because they think they could only glide like their modern equivalents. If you look though their wings are quite a bit bigger, and better formed. Maybe they couldn't fly long distances, but I bet they did at least as well as grasshoppers.
>> Anonymous
>>194846
>>194985
Xianglong and Kuehneosaurus could GLIDE, not fly! For an animal to achieve true flight, it needs moving muscular wings to sustain its flight, which none of those prehistoric "rib-gliders" had. Just being able to glide longer distances does not mean flying!
>> Anonymous
Bats have fingers on the end of their wings
>> Anonymous
>>195015
You can tell their wings were made for flapping by the shape. Gliding animals don't have fully formed wings.
>> Anonymous
>>195160

You can't exactly tell. After all, those are just reconstructions of what they might have looked like...

Though the images of what they supposedly looked like do suggest flight.
>> Anonymous
>>195199
>>195160
>>195015
now I know they had extra ribs but...

it seems to me somewhat a bad thing to open your ribs up and expose more of your soft belly....that could be bad in certain situations I would think.
>> Anonymous
>>195199
Their fossils are pretty small so the imprint of the animals are still around the bones. The only thing you can't tell is the color. If the wings were for gliding they should have been wider to catch more wind. In the case of these lizards the wings look built for quick movement, as in flying.
>> Anonymous
>>195218
>>195199

Ok, mr genius, since you are more qualified to make statements of the anatomy of extinct animals than actual professional paleontologists, why don't you explain to us how exactly did they flap wings made out of RIBS?!

Oh wait, I know. They had evolved completely novel muscles to do the job! That's really likely!
>> Anonymous
>>195230
I do believe the ribs were unlike the ribs you know of....
its entirely possible the ribs were more flexible, with cartilage in between and a muscle system.
I redirect you to this post.
>>193743
>> Anonymous
>>195230

195218 and 195199 are different people (I was 195199 an 194889, suggesting something that had four legs and certainly looks like it has flappablewings. )

All I said was that you can't really judge how well-developed the wings were from an artist's rendering of what they may have looked like.

Actually, I do kind of know some expert paleontologists...But this isn't their field, so they probably don't know anything about it. (one specializes in clams, the other in mammals)
>> Anonymous
>>195241
>>195243
It's also entirely possible that Elvis was an alien cephalopod from Eta Carinae. Does any single vertebrate paleontologist in the world think they might have been flappable wings? If not, stop pushing your kooky hypotheses as facts.