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Excuse the crude animation, I used a normal 2d pivot animation tool. I don't see what's wrong with just...leaping into the air. The way all digitigrade bipeds do in real life.

So basically no running to give it forward momentum, that is something to consider if someone were to try to make one that did run.

Because at that point if it were to try jumping it would be on one leg, and that would be an interesting take off. I wonder what it would look like.

That kind of maneuver is probably doable? The running aspect just to speculate, it would be, for my interpretation, visually like someone swinging their leg up in order to jump over or on to something while pushing off with the other leg. I guess kind of like jumping onto a horse after you get one foot into a stirrup? But then when they push off they would grab the air and then their other leg would repeat the process and they would take off. This would involve quite a bit of flapping muscle, which they obviously have.


Launching from a standing position is pretty believable to me, just really requires them to be quite light and focus the majority of their musculature into their legs, which is what's already going on.




When I was talking about an intestine-like structure, as in a through gut like structure, I wasn't really thinking of the villi which cover the walls but rather how the intestine is a tube that pumps fluid through itself, and if it's a bunch of tidal lungs that are tied together essentially creating a Chambers that pump into one another then that sounds superficially similar. I would assume that it's really just a ton of tiny tubes that span the length of these muscle bound sacks that then squeeze all the tubes of their section at once in order to force air through the entire system.



But if airsacs are involved then I would be curious about how that works, given birds only have one hole to work with for the respiratory system while these have two, it would seem like these guys would have a much simpler method.

Thinking about the specifics of how their limbs would move during one of these jumping takeoffs.


Although during the initial launch their legs would be extended out behind them as they jump like a grasshopper or a jerboa, I would suspect that before they actually shift they would rather immediately tuck the legs in as much as possible shift positions outward and then extend for an immediate downward flap.

This makes a lot of sense to me as it would minimize drag from the limbs during shifting. And also if they were to mess up then they could pretty comfortably capture themselves back on the ground.



This would actually benefit any species that were to attempt a running jump, as that would mean that one of their two limbs is already tucked into position in order to be able to flap, and any focus on moving their limbs would only have to go toward one of their legs.

Going back and rereading the description, maybe comparing it more to the heart of a fish is better. Since it seems that you had written it to be that a pair of lungs work together to pump Air from themselves to the next pair of lungs. Though I'm still unsure how the air sacs are involved, is it like each long has its own air sac that extends from it so that it's able to process more air?

I was honestly imagining a running jump being like... skip for a bit of air time to get both feet into the landing position at once, then land and launch like a kangaroo. Or going from asymmetrical galloping to a hop to the same end result.

The air sacs are meant to be helping keep the air flowing in as previously-inhaled air is pushed along the system.

Ooo, a skipping gait is unique and allows a running take off to more closely derive from a standing take off.

That's fun.