[neilep (OP)]

Dearest Klevur Peeps,

Wings are great aren't they ?  Wings are my all time favourite thing that help you fly.

But presuming evolution took longer than a few weeks to evolve the wings, how did the transition occur ? surely flying things would not have been able to use their wings until they had completed their evolution ? that's a long wait innit ?


How Did Wings Evolve  ?




whajafink ?

[Colin2B]

whajafink ?

I fink flying squirrel type of idea. You don't fly powered until you can glide (although Alan will probably disagree).
Probably a lot of crashes along the way.

[Bored chemist]

Any creatures that live in trees will have had plenty of crashes anyway- sometimes fatal.
The ones with a "proto-wing"  will have survived better.

If you are the size of a mouse, falling out of a tree probably isn't fatal, but every little helps.

[alancalverd]

Always a good idea to start with a glider, because it can work with almost no moving parts. The motion of a bird or insect wing is phenomenally complicated, requires a huge proportion of the animal's body weight to be flight muscle, and burns up energy disgracefully.

One of the mysteries of the dinosaurs is how pterodactyls managed to fly, as they had no significant keel to their breastbone, so probably couldn't take off under power. The suggestion is that they climbed up cliffs and launched themselves downwards. But that still implies a hell of a lot of plummeting pioneers before anyone evolved hollow bones and a web.

The entire structure of the most primitive flying insects does look awfully well "designed", with the pilot at the front, fuel tank at the back, and a massive engine and four wings in the middle. One could be forgiven for thinking that non-flying insects were a prototype, with the intention of adding wings later. 

[Bored chemist]

The suggestion is that they climbed up cliffs and launched themselves downwards.

Hmm...
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=80119.0

[evan_au]

Who needs wings?

[alancalverd]

Hmm...
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=80119.0

Maybe you've never had a bungee launch in a glider, flown a hang glider from a mountain, departed an aircraft carrier at max takeoff weight, or had my experience of an early microlight that would only leave the ground if the ground was sloping downwards. The difference between marginal flight and suicide is a controlled dive.

Come to think of it, there are a few species of seabirds that still prefer to launch from the cliffs.

[Bored chemist]

Who needs wings?

Sir Paul McCartney