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Science

First Flying Dinosaurs Had Biplane Structure 144

Posted by Zonk from the made-little-whirring-noises-to-keep-going dept.
unchiujar writes to mention a BBC article about the design of the first flying dinosaurs. These possible early ancestors of avians apparently resembled biplanes in many ways, with legs hanging down in a fashion similar to WWI fighters. The researchers who made this discovery use this to argue the 'trees down' model of flight evolution, but the article points out this design may possibly be a failed evolutionary experiment. From the article: "Dr Chatterjee, from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, US, explained that two lines of evidence had led the team to this conclusion. Firstly, the researchers argue, dinosaurs and birds move their legs in a vertical plane, not sideways as the tandem flight pattern requires. Secondly, the feathers on Microraptor's hind legs are asymmetrical; one of the two vanes that extend either side of the shaft is narrower than the other. Aerodynamically, the narrow leading edge of these feathers should face forward in flight, against the direction of airflow. This would have given the flying reptiles lift. "
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First Flying Dinosaurs Had Biplane Structure More

First Flying Dinosaurs Had Biplane Structure

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  • This seems strange, and TFA doesn't really clarify, but from the picture it looks like the legs of the microraptor are fused together. this would seem to make it quite difficult to maneuver on the ground. And if they weren't fused, it seems it would have been difficult to keep the legs together to get the lift of the bottom wings...
    • Not clear?

      From TFA:
      "Spread 'em

      An initial assessment of Microraptor fossils from China suggested the animal spread its legs out laterally and maintained its wings in a tandem pattern, in a similar manner to dragonflies."

  • Intersting theory... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jmagar.com ( 67146 ) on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @11:54AM (#17724120) Homepage
    I'm having trouble visualizing what this may have looked like. The artist rendition is far too rectangular to be the way it actually was. Instead that diagram looks like the artist was trying to force it to resemble a modern wing.

    I wonder if it might be better diagrammed with the bird using its legs in an "A" framed sort of way. Much like the V shaped stabilizers of the F117, only inverted. This would provide some lift, and stability in flight....

    • I'm also quite confused about all of this. How would an animal use a fixed-wing design, as a biplane does? The fixed wing design requires a continuous, strong airflow coming toward it in the horizontal direction. This is what creates the lift and allows the wing to keep it in the air. What's providing the forward motion that allows for air to flow that direction?
    • artist renditions of microraptor:

      http://images.google.com/images?q=microraptor [google.com]
    • I like your idea much better. It makes so much sense that the legs would be spread, and basing what kinds of movements were possible only based on fossil skeletons and a very unrepresentative subset of the reptilian species that remain alive today doesn't seem like great science. I'm thinking that if these creatures managed to get arboreal, they would have needed a great deal more agility than what the authors of this study suggest therefore would have a much less limited range of motion of the hip joints a

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Conanymous Award ( 597667 )
        From TFA:
        "This contrasts with earlier reconstructions showing the dinosaur maintaining its wings in a tandem pattern, a bit like a dragonfly."

        The idea, that the hind legs of Microraptor gui would have been spread is old, and makes less sense than this new hypothesis. To have two wings in row would be useless because of the turbulence created by the front wings. And anatomy is a very legitimate branch of science: from a skeleton, even from a fossil one when it's as well preserved as this one, you can see qui
    • Yeah, I had problems with the tiny pic on the posted site.

      National Geographic [nationalgeographic.com] has better pics. View the photo gallery.

  • If it was a biplane, shouldnt it have two wings? are the feet the second pair of wings? Anyway the thing about biplanes is they need very little speed to stay in the air, due to all the wing area. Makes sense that this would be a early design in human and evolutionary flight.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Deadstick ( 535032 )
      the thing about biplanes is they need very little speed to stay in the air, due to all the wing area.

      Not hardly. A biplane has no more lift-generating capability than a monoplane of the same total area...in fact less, because of interference between the two wings. The primary reason for a biplane is that by adding a few struts and wires, you can easily make a lightweight structure strong enough to carry heavy loads -- and you can do it with simple manufacturing techniques.

      A secondary advantage is that a

  • Samuel Jackson would be t3h p1ss3d (Score:5, Funny)

    by neuro.slug ( 628600 ) <neuro__ AT hotmail DOT com> on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @12:03PM (#17724220)
    "Enough is enough! I've had it with this muthafuckin' snakes lookin' like muthafuckin' planes!"

  • But he's kind of a crank. (Score:3, Informative)

    by CapnRob ( 137862 ) on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @12:05PM (#17724252)
    I know several vertebrate paleontologists, and every time I hear them talk about this guy, the general impression I get is that he's kind of a crank. He's not, to put it mildly, well-respected in the vert paleo community, and his views on this are about as widely held as the view that Wensleydale cheese is the root taxon for frogs.

    • I know several vertebrate paleontologists

      Don't all paleontologists have vertebraes?

      I'm sorry.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jerf ( 17166 )
      Wensleydale cheese is the root taxon for frogs.
      What an interesting theory. If true, it would revolutionize biology as we know it.

      Pray tell good sir, do you know where I might obtain funding to study this potential breakthrough in biology?

    • From the first post:

      "A reptile that lived 225 million years ago had triangular-shaped wings like the delta-wings of some jets."

      From this (new) post:

      These possible early ancestors of avians apparently resembled biplanes in many ways, with legs hanging down in a fashion similar to WWI fighters.

      Way to be able to tell the difference between a fighter jet [wikipedia.org] and a biplane [wikipedia.org]. I know this is slashdot and all, but you could at least read the summary.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EnderGT ( 916132 )
        Also from the first post:

        Last fall NatGeo reported that the first biplane configuration was on a dinosaur

        Way to be able to tell the difference between a dupe and a non-dupe. I know this is slashdot and all, but you could at least read the summary(ies).

  • Ha (Score:2, Funny)

    by Fist! Of! Death! ( 1038822 )
    Just another inbred lizard.

    Design flaw was the wings dropped off when it got a fright - which was when it first leapt from the trees. Ouch! Evolution pulls a nasty one!
  • The most frequent cause of their deaths: vines caught in their propellers. Second is running out of fuel.
    • Third was the machine guns that, when swung to the front, had a nasty habit of shooting their heads off.
  • The short-lived triplane dinosaurs couldn't get off the ground.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Soko ( 17987 )
      The short-lived triplane dinosaurs couldn't get off the ground.

      I thought it was their bright red plumage that screwed up any camouflage they might have. Or the bi-winged dinosaur named Snoopy that kept shooting them down...

      Soko
  • Am I the only one to think the comparison to biplanes is a bit .... off? Planes with tailwings, like the wings on the tail (you see on commercial planes (think Boeing 727), do NOT count as biplanes. Now about canards...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by IflyRC ( 956454 )
      Canards are forward on the fuselage usually. The way this sounds its more like a horizontal stabilizer.
  • In other news scientits have revealed the first fossil of humping dino's

    Bert
  • With legs hanging down? I've never seen legs on a biplane?
  • "This would have given the flying reptiles lift."
  • This story reminds me of a Little Ceaser's commercial from maybe 1988.

    Guy: So what am I gonna do with this pizza box?
    Clerk: You ever hear of origami?
    Clerk frenetically folds pizza box.
    Clerk: It's a pterodactyl.
    Clerk runs with origami pterodactyl
    • Clerk: Don't think of it as just a pizza. Think of it as a pizza and a box.
      Guy: What am I gonna do with a box?
      Clerk: Ever heard of origami? *frenetically folds pizza box*
      Guy: What's that?
      Clerk: A pteradactyl
      Guy: A what?
      Clerk: *Runs around making squawking noises*
  • Okay, I don't care if they had 1 wing, 2 wings or had 50, the point here is simple. I want my 'A' from my Evolutionary Biology class! My teacher was wrong! ha! and my research paper was right! What am I talking about? I argued in my paper that birds didn't learn to fly by running across the ground and spreading their arms out, but in fact lived in trees and were excellent climbers. He stated that the current science didn't support that, even though every Parrot species and Old WOrld species in the worl

    • every Parrot species and Old WOrld species in the world climbs trees and glides from tree to tree

      I certainly hope you are not implying that parrots can't take off from the ground. The parrot sitting about two feet behind me as I type this certainly can, and does. And, since he thinks I'm competing with him for the one he considers his mate (my wife), I have the scars to prove it.

      • oh no no.. I have three in my house too, but if you see greater macaws in the wild you'll notice that on the rare occasion that they drop from the canopy they often won't fly back up instead they choose to climb, and they are suprisingly fast at it. It's an odd behavior, but it's consistant with the gliding evolution since you probably didn't learn to take off first, but instead leaned to control falling first.

        • Got you, and it's a good point.

          Hey, since you have parrots, have you ever how saurian those little critters can seem sometimes? I've heard that they are among the earliest of bird species to appear, about 60 million years ago--right around the time the last of the dinosaurs became extinct--and have often felt anyone who doubts that birds are the last remnants of the dinos should spend some time with a parrot. It would change their mind!

          • Oh very very much so!

            If you need proof, just put a chicken leg infront of an Amazon... and watch it eat the chicken and tear apart the bone too... little canibles all of them! LOL.

            Anyway, I do subscribe to school that beleives Avians to the be the offshoot of the primative lizards, so they're all just mini-dinos to me. Two of them come out to play on the floor where they are usually face to face with my 70lb Rotty. They chase him around making little hissing noises and laughing. He's terrified an

  • What I want to know (Score:4, Funny)

    by Junior J. Junior III ( 192702 ) on Tuesday January 23, 2007 @01:58PM (#17725876) Homepage
    Is how these dinosaurs managed to fire their machineguns through their propellers without shooting off the prop?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mindwarp ( 15738 )
      Steel plating on the leading edges of the prop blades of course. You just have to hope that you don't get a 180 degree ricochet.
    • I don't know about machine guns, but I'm sure they dropped some big bombs. I'm glad I don't have to clean that off my windshield!
  • I believe they became extincted when the RedBaronsaurus came to life as the next evolution step with its Fokker triplane wings and kill them all for feeding itself. Eventually, while the stocks declined the RedBaronsaurus just died.

  • "Curse you Red Velociraptor!"

    Chris Mattern
  • Fry: Look out! We're heading straight for those trees!

    Leela: Yeah, yeah, relax. Trees down.

    Trees: (mechanical voice) Trees down.

    [The trees go down and Fry and Leela ski over them.]

    Fry: Cool. Hey, what do you do if you want the trees up?

    Trees: (mechanical voice) Trees up.

    [The trees go up and one takes Fry with it.]

    Fry: (hoarse) Trees down!

    Trees: (mechanical voice) Trees down.

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