A birds tail

[Christopher]

I remember as a child my father told me if I was able to put salt on a birds tail I could catch the bird.

Later that day, I could be seen stalking robins in the back yard with a large container of mortons salt as my father laughed from the kitchen window.

 

One night 35 years later after watching a show that debated the origin of bird flight, I was having a dream where I was standing at the edge of a large clearing. In the clearing I saw a group of feathered theropods.

 

They were all a dark blue in color and seemed to be at an evolutionary stage before flight. This thought suddenly propelled to chase after these creatures. I felt somehow that If I could catch one of these dinos I would be able to examine it and discover some truth about how they learned to fly.

 

As ran behind one at high speed, I could almost grab its long tail when suddenly there was a bright white flash a loud squawk ! it seemed for a moment that the theropod had exploded in a flash of light and disappeared right in front of me.

 

I stood there stunned and turned to see that the creature had merely change directions suddenly, as it did though it used its tail as a rudder much like a cheetah to change direction.

 

What had stunned me however was a much more ingenious adaptation. underneath the dark blue tail feathers were bright white feathers. This sudden flash of white combined with the loud squawk and sudden 90 degree turn would disrupt any predators neural network long enough for the theropod to make its getaway.

 

 

They all stopped and looked back at me seeming rather smug and untouchable like the robins in my back yard, then they all leapt into the air and began to fly in a strange serpentine patterns in the sky. I could see the white under the tails and also under their wings. Then I woke up.

 

This is how I interpreted the dream, the secret of bird flight is not in the wings, but in the tail, the running theropod used the tail as multi-purpose complex feature to avoid what ever was chasing it.

 

This body plan allowed the tail to function an symmetrical aerodynamic information gathering device.

Once the genetic linkage is established between cognition, nervous system, muscles, ligaments, feather shape. the system can be brought forward bilaterally to the arms to make them wings.

This also explains why birds display their tail feathers in mating rituals. This was the original seat of survival traits in bird morphology so when one ask why the peacocks tail is so bright it is because this is its ancestral source of genetic complexity and power. Wings emerged from this source of genetic complexity easily after the tail had honed these linkages over vast periods of time.

 

 

 

Flight feathers would developed first on the theropods tail enabling it to control pitch and yaw as a runner so it to could change direction sharply from right to left just as birds do today when flying.

 

The same way the jet uses its rear tail flaps to turn. Two distinct mechanism performing two distinct functions, the wings providing the lift the tail providing the steering, and the steering was perfected as a runner in the right left dimension of the ground, before the up down dimension of lift into the sky, and of coarse this was provided by the flight feathers of the tail before the flight feathers of the wings so the ability for flight originated though the complex adaptive tail before the wings !

 

 

The point is this, in the prominent theory of bird fight “ground up” no one has yet figured out why the theropod would develop the highly adapted flight feather on the wings before they actually started flying.

To develop fight feathers on the arms while running and catching things is to awkward. The theropod would need to run around with its arms stretched out trying to glide for millions of years and then run around for another million flapping them up and down before developing flight feathers.

 

 

Why would it do this? There is no advantage, no smooth development.

 

But, if the flight feathers and all the associated linkages were developed in the tail they could then easily be adopted by the feathers along a meridian over the rest of the body. What I mean by meridians is these lines that can transfer traits across the body plan I don’t know of the exact terminology or even if there is one. but nonetheless next time you see a chicken that has been plucked you can see a distinct symmetrical longitudinal lines or pathways on the body that runs from the tail to the wings.

 

 

 

 

These dream birds also seemed to contained some information in the strange dark blue color………. after some time it finally occurred to me, they were the same shade of blue as a container of mortons salt.

[Turtle]

Very interesting insights; I understand that the discoverer of the molecular structure of benzene came by his insight in a dream as well. Fascinating idea. Not to mention that if a predator managed to bite the tail feathers they might come out in its mouth allowing the creature's escape - much like some lizzards loose & regrow their tails.

:)

[Mercenaryend]

interesting indeed , but wouldnt an animal chasing one of these birds soon discover after being fooled once what was going on? mabey or mabey not, but i still think this little suprise party would only be a suprise so many times before it became just a fact of the chase, and not a real detirminer

[Turtle]

interesting indeed , but wouldnt an animal chasing one of these birds soon discover after being fooled once what was going on? mabey or mabey not, but i still think this little suprise party would only be a suprise so many times before it became just a fact of the chase, and not a real detirminer

 

Then why do Gazelles & Cheetahs still dance, or any predator/prey? :)

The Hedgehog knows only one trick, but it is a very good trick - Archilochus

[Mercenaryend]

#1 im not very good at argueing with smart like people , but the reason a hedge hog might use the same trick (not aware what this trick is) is becuase its preditor does not know how to avoid it, but i would need to know this trick , and i dont... :)

[Turtle]

#1 im not very good at argueing with smart like people , but the reason a hedge hog might use the same trick (not aware what this trick is) is becuase its preditor does not know how to avoid it, but i would need to know this trick , and i dont... :)

 

If you are online to post here, you are online to Google "the hedgehog knows only one trick", as I did.

Research is how smart-like people get like...smart. :)

[Christopher]

interesting indeed , but wouldnt an animal chasing one of these birds soon discover after being fooled once what was going on? mabey or mabey not, but i still think this little suprise party would only be a suprise so many times before it became just a fact of the chase, and not a real detirminer

 

 

 

I posted this story earlier in the science and philosophy section as a thread starter but now looks as though it may be more of a fit right here.

 

The most profound story I’ve ever read comes one from one of Carlos Castaneda’s books, I can’t recall which one, but it was like many of his “Tales of eternity” they always hint at more than they actually say .

 

This one starts with the old shaman Don Juan and his apprentice the anthropology student Carlos observing some desert creatures as they scurried about in the desert chaparral.

 

Don Juan commented that a man could survive in the dessert by hunting those animals, But first you would need to study them and know their habits.

He explain how they followed a pattern that could be mapped as a circle around a burrow. Once these feeding cycles are learned snares could be set and escape routes could be routed, so the animals own cyclical behavior became its venerability.

But he warned his apprentice, as you follow these behaviors and set your snares every day in the same way, you also make yourself venerable because you too are being observed.

He said there were predators even more attuned to theses circular patterns of the dessert, so some day something could be waiting for you along one of your well worn paths.

 

He went on to say that there existed in nature an ultimate balance between awareness of these cyclical movements in the world and a spontaneity of action in ones self, an unpredictability that wells up from the spirit.

Once this balance is achieved the hunter becomes a “magical warrior.”

“A magical warrior can never be trapped” don Juan said or “be caught without an escape route,” because he can never be reduced to behaviors .

 

This “warrior’s path” are no longer connected to cycles of the world, but of the spirit, thus he can always “see” what is coming without being seen himself.

 

Also, he said there existed in the world animals “magical creatures.” that have achieved this balance.

 

Don Juan recounted that he himself had achieved this state as a young man and became a magical warrior, and seemed to always know instinctively what to do in any situation, until one day he was hunting on a heavily forested ridge top. He remembered hearing a strange sound that sent shivers though his body.

 

He knew instinctively that he was to about to have an encounter with a magical creature, and for the first time since he had reached this state he had no clue what to do.

 

So he did the most illogical thing. He stood on his head and began to cry, after some time he felt something breathing in his ear, he fell over in a sitting position and looked up at the most beautiful deer that he had ever seen, and then it spoke “ Why are you crying ?” the deer inquired “ Because I'm sad ” Don Juan heard himself reply, then he remembered the deer lowered his head and said very clearly “ Don’t be sad ” and ambled away.

 

After listening to Don Juan’s story, Carlos, being an anthropologist and a man of logic and science, replied that the story was ridicules “deer’s do not talk !” he said “I know I know” the old shaman replied “It was the damnedest thing.”

[Michaelangelica]

Interesting article

Do birds sleep?

In Study of Human Patterns, Scientists Look to Bird Brains

(or after that long flight are your arms tired)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/science/23migr.html