posted
Okay. Dragonflies and other insects have 4 wings and they seem to do just fine. Yet birds and bats and such have only two wings. I was just wondering if there were any particular reason why a larger species, say the size of a housecat, could not also have 4 wings.
The reason I ask is that I think it would be a neat idea for some aliens I am creating. They are already a little like birds and a little like lizards, but their life cycle involves metamorphic stages like insects.
If the 4 wing concept could work, are there any structural or aerodynamic issues I need to be aware of? Would the wings have to be stiff instead of jointed like bird's wings?
Any and all comments appreciated, including Survivor's .
posted
I think it depends on how your aliens are designed. If you were to do four wings, I would say make the aliens insect like. I don't exactly know what type of aliens they are though, so I couldn't say what to do. I suppose you could make it long and snake-like and have some wings in the front half and some in the back.
Posts: 32 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I think the structural problems/issues that you're talking about might include more muscles in the back for the extra set of wings, extra light bones or what ever other physiological features that you come up with.
I think that having wing membranes like a bat would be cool, easier to hide, or whatnot.
If the aerodynamic issue is major, the aliens could be streamlined like lizards, making flight easier for them.
If this helps let me know, if not it's just my opinion.
posted
Just another thought. Do both sets of wings have to be functional?
Birds have wings, but they don't have arms or hands.
If the aliens had one set of wings used for flying, the other set could be more like arms with hands (perhaps bat-like) with a flap of skin hanging down and attaching near the waist area. This second wing set could be used for gliding or maximizing updrafts.
For some reason I'm picturing something simillar to the flying bat-like aliens in Titan A.E. except with wings for flying and wings for gliding.
posted
> Considering that some angels (seraphim, I > believe) have six wings,
Interesting but little-known fact: Seraphim's faces are obscured by copies of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and they wear copies of Tom Sawyer as shoes. Their ability to fly doesn't come from their wings, it comes from the books.
posted
I have actually drawn my creatures with the wings and I already had them with very long tails, partly as a balance for their very long, proboscis-like beaks. After reading the articles I realize that the way I envision them makes sense.
Thanks, guys. I'm off to write . . .
Except, I've been thinking about these guys for years and have still never come up with a name I like for them. Their feather/scales are rainbow hued and iridescent and they make gorgeous music with their snouts. I want to come up with a name that suits them, for now I have just been calling them avians. Any ideas?
posted
For the novel I'm working I needed to create some bird facts. I phoned, emailed and visited a bunch of bird experts: a professor at the local university, a flock of bird rescuers, a state naturalist, and I visited a museum where they had bird bone artifacts. I was surprised how open and creative experts can be. If I were you I make a road trip out of this idea and ask the experts for name ideas. If that fails, think Latin.
Posts: 397 | Registered: Mar 2004
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If I were an explorer/colonizer on an alien world and I found flying irridescently scaled animals the size of housecats, I'd probably call them "minidragons" (or maybe dragoncats) even if they had four wings. If it turned out they sang beautifully, I'd call them "songdragons." It's a good marketing name, too, and I bet they'd sell for very high prices back on Earth -- much better than a plain old "avian" would.
[This message has been edited by EricJamesStone (edited July 05, 2005).]
quote:Interesting but little-known fact: Seraphim's faces are obscured by copies of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and they wear copies of Tom Sawyer as shoes. Their ability to fly doesn't come from their wings, it comes from the books.
You are my new favorite person.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Actually, to be honest, the "Avians" sounds kind of cool. It has a ring to it. It sounds like something an explorer would use to quickly refer to something. I think it would help the reader come up with a connection more quickly.
Posts: 62 | Registered: Jun 2005
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* Sorry to be so forceful, but it's a pet peeve. "Avians" is simply a Latinate term for "birds." Birds are a particular development on Earth that didn't exist for most of its prehistory. The particular traits of birds: feathers, hollow bones, flying, beak, naked feet, warm blood, a particular pelvic structure, and many other traits non-experts like us won't even know about . . . the chances of the same characteristics showing up on another world is approximately zero. I wouldn't even expect vertebrates on another world. I think using "avian" works as a way to make something seem alien, when it's just a bird. I want SF authors to show imagination, rather than covering up their lack of it BEEP BEEP JUDGMENT ALERT with funny terms.
We also won't find grass on other planets (or for most of the history of life on Earth). Or insects. But we might find ground cover, and vermin.
* Now, about why birds and bats have 2 wings: it's because they're descended from 4-legged creatures (and 2 of those legs are needed as legs for perching -- or not, if that Archaeopteryx theory is correct). There is a theory that this is because all these things are ultimately descended from fish. Maybe fish's ancestors had many legs/fins, but 4 is enough, and more causes extra drag. 4 is better. The descendants of fish are unlikely to go back to 6 or more limbs, because there's no clear advantage in doing so.
Larry Niven used this in "Flare Time": he speculated that on a world with faster evolution, there might not be a long enough period as swimmers to lose the extra limbs. Therefore the sentient aliens on his world (or maybe it was someone else's world he was writing in) had 8 limbs, I think it was.
So I think your multi-winged creatures are plausible, but probably won't be descended from fish.
posted
Well, in case this helps any, their life-cycle is as follows:
Similar to insects on earth, the young are laid in eggs that form bubble-sacs on the surface of water. The eggs hatch into amphibians, sort of a tadpole or nymph stage, then they make a cocoon-type transformation into the adult form. They shed skins as they grow like snakes and insects do once they have attained their adult shape.
I know that avian means flying bird, basically, and I don't plan on using it in the final. It was just a placeholder. Like saying 'bears' when your aliens are vaguely bear-like but before you have actually come up with a unique term.
posted
Hmmm, interestingly, that sounds a bit like the Italian for butterfly...or a contracted form. Your suggested life cycle sounds a lot like dragonflies, which makes plenty of sense, as long as you account for the size issues (easiest solution is a lower gravity or a much denser atmosphere, we've had some interesting discussions on the difficulty of combining both ideas).
The points that wb raised are valid, and I'm relieved to be spared the necessity of making them.
posted
I already thought of that, Survivor. The world has a lower gravity or my trees wouldn't grow as high as I need them to. So the Fayli will do fine there. But thanks for noticing that it helps with plausibility!
Posts: 818 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
The gravity has to be strong enough that humans can live on the planet without major bone or spinal changes; though I suppose over time (at the time of this novel they will have been on the planet somewhere close to a thousand years) the human body would change appearance somewhat. I was thinking something like 80% Earth gravity. Do you think that is plausible?
Posts: 818 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Would a lower gravity mean a thinner atmosphere? I seem to recall a discussion about that recently...
Would that effect the way sound travels? If the atmosphere is thinner and sound doesn't travel as well, perhaps the humans have developed larger ears -- almost Vulcan or Elf-like. A thinner atmosphere might also mean that the humans might be shorter with larger lungs to improve breathing and oxygenation of the blood... Perhaps larger spleens to store more red blood cells... Thicker bones with more marrow to produce more red blood cells... Leaner muscles to help with oxygenation...
posted
If you wanted a higher gravity, you would need a planet larger than Earth, but if you wanted a lower gravity, it would need to be smaller.
Posts: 32 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:If you wanted a higher gravity, you would need a planet larger than Earth, but if you wanted a lower gravity, it would need to be smaller.
Not exactly. It's mass that matters. If the planet is made of more dense matter, it can be smaller than earth yet have stronger gravity. Or vice-versa.
Posts: 292 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Autumn, do you have Stephen Gillett's book World-Building: A writer's guide to constructing star systems and life-supporting planets? On page 74 he discusses flight on low-gravity worlds, and on page 76 discusses their atmosphere. I haven't read that chapter yet -- I just looked in the index under "surface gravity" to see if there was anything that would be of use to you -- but he seems to be saying that low-gravity planets would have more massive and thicker atmospheres, and that this would make such planets even more conducive to flying.
There is also a good essay by Poul Anderson on the physics of world-building in Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy: 20 Dynamic Essays by Today's Top Professionals (published 1991). He suggests that 75% to 125% earth gravity would be the livable range for humans. Of course, that's just his guess -- I just thought I'd mention it as something that might be relevant for you to look at.
posted
> but he seems to be saying that low-gravity > planets would have more massive and > thicker atmospheres,
Hmmm. I'd like to see his reasoning on that, considering the atmospheric states of the low-gravity planets in our solar system.
Of course, it's possible for a planet with a lower gravity than Earth to have a thicker atmosphere. I just don't see how lower gravity would cause a thicker atmosphere.
posted
Well, like I said, I haven't read the whole chapter. But my understanding is that it is not supposed to be a generic if-then statment ("If a planet has low gravity, then it has a thick atmosphere"). I think it is more supposed to be what would happen if you exclude certain types of planet as not very convenient for people to live on, then look at what's left over. Maybe it makes more sense to say that if you happen to find a low-gravity planet where people can walk around on the surface breathing easily, it will also have a thick atmosphere. Put another way, if you want the same atmospheric pressure at sea level on both a LG and a HG planet, the LG one will have to have a thicker atmosphere to do it.
posted
In this case, though, the atmosphere is "thicker" in the sense of being deeper, the atmospheric pressure at sea level is the same. That means that you can fly higher before running into problems with thinning air (in the sense of the air being less dense and providing less atmospheric pressure), but you can't fly any better at ground level.
As for the gravity itself, they've been working on ways to allow humans to survive in free-fall for extended periods of time. Certainly, it would be important to work out actively in any gravity to maintain yourself in top shape. If you're willing to run 20 miles in the morning (leaping over tall buildings, which could be pretty dang tall on a low gravity planet) rather than two, or perhaps take up ornithoptery, there isn't any fundamental reason you couldn't stay fit even in a very low gravity environment. If you're going to be a complete sloth, it's a lot easier in low-g, but the fundamentals are the same.
posted
As long as you're figuring out the adaptations of a low-gravity ecosystem, I suggest you read "Out of the Silent Planet" by C.S. Lewis. The book takes place on Mars, and with lower gravity, the forests there, as well as the local sentient species Sorn, have very tall, very slender bodies. Gravity isn't the same barrier as it is on Earth, so greater heights are possible and not as much structural strength is needed to maintain them. Also, blood flow would be easier in lower gravity, since the heart wouldn't have to work as hard to get blood back from the arms and legs. This would have interesting effects on the humans: with more bloodflow, and thus more nutrients, they would have greater metabolism, and thus more energy, and also greater appetites.
Posts: 77 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Actually that book was one of the inspirations for my world. I have loved C.S. Lewis' space trilogy since childhood and the imagery from Mars has sort of become part of me.
Posts: 818 | Registered: Aug 2004
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