Comments on: Evolution of Flight: Did Early Birds Run and Flap Before They Flew?

By: A. Reader

A. Reader — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 16:51:54 +0000

TO THE EDITOR:
I do not like to use e-mail, for various reasons. May I suggest that you put a “feedback” link to a text-box such as this one on your main pages, so that someone may give feedback quickly and easily?

For example, the page:
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/jan-feb/093
… contains what appears to be a typo:
The quirks in Einstein’s thinging parts may…
… and it appears to me that “thinging” perhaps should be “thinking”.
Your readers perhaps could contribute to improving the quality of your publication (which already is of more than acceptable quality!), even in such mundane areas as proofreading, Facilitating their feedback would encourage this.
Perhaps the text feedback could be limited to perhaps 100 to 200 characters, to discourage spam and rants.

Should another reader wish to e-mail the publication with this suggestion, it would be much appreciated. Thank you.

By: Crow

Crow — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:02:42 +0000

This avenue supplies a very reasonable avenue of “small steps.” Flap harder, or have longer feathers, and you can maneuver just a bit better. Escape just a bit more and pass on the genes. Seems like a very small step from heavy flap/run to flap/fly.

By: atlanticblue

atlanticblue — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 00:30:36 +0000

I suspect they used their wings to escape predators faster, on cliffs perhaps. I take care of parakeets whose wings are cut and they are hard to catch when they boost themselves further with their wings. I always catch them when they are running. Also, being hit by a wing in the face hurts. A dinosaur bird slap in the face must have stunned even more.

By: m

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 13:03:41 +0000

i might have started this study to look at swimming as well. wings may have first developed as paddles for pro-birds to catch fish.

flight may have been inveitable as these bird like things lived near sources of food….high cliffs, etc.

over time…say contintental drift, as a lot of coastlines “rose” higher, evelotuion may have followed.

By: Glidingpig

Glidingpig — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 05:06:20 +0000

Chickens can fly, just not far.

By: scribbler

scribbler — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 05:25:03 +0000

Uh, why not just study chickens??? They have wings and don’t fly…

By: orang

orang — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 23:10:03 +0000

Not exactly on topic, but I always found it a compelling hypothesis that some of the early wing and wing size evolution could have been driven by temperature regulation concerns or other protection from the elements [not just feathers, but the larger wing structure, too].

Once large wings were present, other theories come more into play. If selection pressure is strong enough to keep large wings for other reasons, it would then beg to have the wings also help balance, jump higher, propel the bird forward when running, etc. These would all lead to components of the eventual motions of flight….

By: amphiox

amphiox — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 20:34:03 +0000

The study author makes a good point about how this finding should not be viewed as supporting the cursorial over the arboreal theories. As among the natural inclines that this behavior could help a bird run up would be tree trunks and branches.