One thing that I wonder about regarding the Albert joint, is what is that little bone sitting there right on top?

It strikes me as the perfect thing to take and then shift in order to create a proper forearm concept.


I understand what you're saying in regard to making the "ankle" broader, and more supportive, and allowing for greater mobility, and how if the piper were a transitional form in the development of this joint that it could potentially be something that was developed for the visor bill.
Though looking at the wing of a bird, and how the rest of the hand Bones have somewhat fused in order to give a strong support for the tip of the wing it does make me wonder if such an approach would result in the mobile joint at the base of the wing toe leaning toward fusing to the foot bone in order to provide a more rigid support if focus were paid toward the ankle or Albert joint for the main source of rotational mobility.

It also comes to mind that this would force the walking toe to become permanently associated with the weight of the wing toe during fluttering, whether the bones of the foot and wing toe were fused or not. While if the foot bone were shrunk and the joint focused on for mobility in the wing was the base of the wing toe then this would completely disjoint the walking toe from the actual moving wing if wanted.

This would be a nice divergence from other biats as well since their entire wing, from shoulder to Wing toe seems to be playing more significant part, with soaring and such and means that the walking toe is going to be forever joined into that structure.

Would the size difference between a metacarpal and metatarsal bone be favoring of shortening regarding adding mobility?

(Maybe the grammar of this question is nonfunctional)


As I suppose the human foot is actually the more specialized of the two ends, although the hand of course is further specialized than that of other primates due to no longer having to perform any walking action...

Mm. The talking choices between both main conversationalists is rather escalated.

Well, I'm just considering that it may be easier to transition to a more mobile joint from the apparent saddle shaped joint of the toes rather than the hinge-shaped joint that all the higher parts of the leg seem to use.

It also would mean that you would have more muscles pulling in more directions available to work with and mess with in order to achieve new movements.

Although the musculature diagram of the sauce back doesn't seem to fully elaborate on this, the muscles attached to the toes must be rather complex with many different "lobes" to them which would allow for more adjustments in how things are attached and how things are pulled. Which would translate into more mobility in the outer sections of the wing.

This, as well as turning that saddle joint of the wing toe into a ball joint which can wiggle waggle as the rest of the limb is rapidly agitated by muscles, I think plays very well with the fluttering way of flying.

I imagine that if the single football is shrunk then that movement from the rest of the limb outward can be pretty comfortably transferred rather than relying on the Albert joint directly.


I also wonder if this would results in the walking toes to dangle underneath like a bee when flying. Which is really hilarious sounding to me, but also easily sidestepped by just tucking them away.


I guess, where I'm coming from with my preference for the tow base as opposed to the Albert joint is just that it's more conservative once elaborations were applied.

That could be solved by shrinking the foot bone to the point of being visibly negligible once meat is on top, and actually I hold curiosity and whether that is able to be shifted around in that part of the wing once it's small enough and become a different form of joint.

But I could also be wrong about that too.

I do actually have a whole rooster that I killed in my freezer that I could rip a wing off of and pull the bones out of and we can look at it, I actually looked at one of those and it was part of why I was confused about the discussion of twisting motion in bird wings prior when it seemed to have been claimed that they cannot move outside of a 2d plane beyond the shoulder.

If you guys want to actually look at a crappy photograph of bird bones, not particularly cleaned.

That's a lot of question marks.


As far as I can tell the way that the elbow twists in the wing of a bird is within a 2D plane between the two segments that make up the limb prior to the wrist. Any movement of that elbow in a twisting manner is performed at the shoulder joint, which as far as I can interpret is essentially what is being said about the sauce back except we're dealing with three segments prior to a wrist rather than two.

There was previous argument that the wrist is unable to twist due to their only being a single bone in the segment prior to that joint, which I personally don't think is a very good argument but seems to be what is established, while (later established) all the twisting that would occur in the limb beyond the shoulder occurring at the base of the digits.

In the wing this would essentially allow the same degree of motion as would be found in a bird wing, assuming that the base of the wing toe is allowed to have the same degree of motion as a standard wrist.

I don't really see too much issue in any of this, if one were to simply take the whole situation and assume what has previously been attempted to be applied to the wrist to simply be transferred to the joint at the base of the wing toe instead, since that is now what should be considered the wing wrist of a flying sauce back.

It does make me wonder if we ought to differentiate between the bases of the two toes, with The walking toe base joint being called an ankle and the adjacent joint which is what attaches the wing toe to the single "foot" bone being called a wrist simply due to analogies to what you would find in a bird.

Disgustedorite you're saying the base of the wing toe may be considered the new wrist, and should have the structural support, strength, and maneuverability of a proper one it sounds like.

Third paragraph has capiri misspelled a couple times

That does sound like a good fix

"the placement of the toes barely allows any kind of curvature ..."


I think I'm a little lost on this part.



Having the kinds of joints listed as useful, I think that the base of the wing toe ought to have switched from a saddle joint to possibly a ball joint of some kind to allow for the greatest amount of mobility when needed. It kind of looks like that's the direction that the skeleton was going anyway.

That was my initial understanding before this whole deal with joints and the skeletal outline came into play, and when I was asking about how Saucebacks could twist below the hip on their toes like real animals could.

That in mind, that their toes are what's able to break out of the planar motion, what are your thoughts on the limb skeleton I suggested?
Basically shortening all the bones, especially the single foot bone and allowing the long toe to become a more maneuverable wing body for fluttering or vortex flight.

I wonder about toe folding given they have three bones in there, or would they just fuse...

I think that sounds really good, takes better advantage of the environment than the original idea even.

QUOTE (Disgustedorite @ Jan 30 2023, 08:09 AM)

Wait, have you been making the assumption this whole time that flying saucebacks twist the pseudo-digitigrade ankle equivalent and not the true ankle and wing toe to adjust in flight? You know the "raised heel" is basically filling the role of the elbow, right?

I personally was interpreting what was being said on your end that twisting in and of itself was being rejecting in favor of a limb that could only move in a 2d plane entirely. With no segment able to break that plane.

If this were a misinterpretation it's where, in my mind, the comparison to an insect wing previously made would have come from.


I think giving names to each bone could be something worth doing since we have a skeleton now.

Muscles sounds more tedious to me since they're not in rows.

I don't necessarily mean that this lineage has a porifereal system, just that if the most basal worms had one it would allow for all the different ways people had wanted their lineages to breath.

I don't think the snark regarding newton is really necessary...

It just seems to me that there's been two walls to get butted into here, the joint being the one here and now.

I think the muscles in the human hand that allow the finger to not only move in a circular fashion but also twist slightly when moving side to side on their base joint is a good body part to observe when considering how this lineage may steer away from the planar motion that seems so conserved in sauceback elaborations.

"It must fly slowly hovering over the water."

maybe add "during feeding" to this to cover preventing damage, but also allowing people to understand that it could move fast if it needed to.

So they shake their leaves to release spores, do they still take advantage of small fauna walking on them?

You could add that they also take advantage of outside disturbances to release spores and fall back onto shaking their leaves when that is not an option.

I think at the very least this lineage is recognized to have some form of respiratory system that spans the length of the body,

I often suggest a basal poriferean system beneath the exoskeletal layer, a spongy porous and vascular tissue layer for absorbing oxygen. This can easily and rapidly be specialized into lungs, microlungs, tracheal systems, and other shapes of organs just from enlarging sacs or tubes in this tissue layer and then silencing the rest of it.

You could say that the spiracles are enlarged pores related to their respiratory system and lead to pockets or sacs beneath the exoskeleton meant for hold air so it can make noise.

maturing the in first year still needs to be written as maturing in the first year

Ah, a joint term I needed was condyloid joint.


Like at the base of fingers.

That's certainly useful.

shrinking this bone would lend toward the fluttering manner that is being aimed for with this lineage, and would open up the potential for digit mobility such as twisting as the muscle attachments associated with that portion can be flaired out for more complex movement if the shape of the joint is allowed to be more complex as well.

I think allowing for the exit from planar form to occur at a single toe would be interesting.




That bone shrinking could probably have been something that happened in the ancestor, since toe elongation happened there as well.

I think that's pretty good, better clarity on what's happening.

I like those suggestions, thank you

Possibly just adding

"leaving out only its respiratory spiracles, afterwhich it makes its way back to its mother's neck"

But this still may need to be elaborated on, maybe that the mother sticks around.

Hm.

That could use an elaboration,

I took it as stating that it was handed back to the mother OR passed along to others depending on the social arrangment in an outcrop.

But the sentence is clunky in that part, could be broken up into a couple sentences instead.