While it lived, Microraptor probably looked like a starling wearing flares. These were clearly traces of long, flat and asymmetric plumes, much like those that keep today’s flying birds aloft. Xu saw the outlines of feathers clearly splaying from the creature’s legs as well as its arms. In 2003, the prolific Chinese dinosaur-hunter Xing Xu found an actual four-winged dinosaur. The double wing aids in maneuverability and steep dives. The double "shoulder" (though neither joint is actually a shoulder) forms the B of your birds wings. A digit can definitely support a flight structure, as seen in the wings of the pterosaurs. In your bird, the alula has enlarged to a size comparable to the main wing. Larger flight feathers found on the wing's trailing edge, these alulaįeathers are asymmetrical, with the shaft running closer to anterior ThereĪlso are minor covert feathers overlying the flight feathers. The alula is the freely movingįirst digit, a bird's "thumb", and typically bears three to five smallįlight feathers, with the exact number depending on the species. The word is Latin and means "winglet" it is theĭiminutive of ala, meaning "wing". Projection on the anterior edge of the wing of modern birds and a few The alula /ˈæljʊlə/, or bastard wing, (plural alulae) is a small Your birds have a double wing, based on expansion of the alula. It then homes in on promising targets detected by the snakes, and shrugs them off, diving into the ensuing explosion of activity to find prey. The docile sidewinder on the hard point still had the innate reflex of orienting towards prospective heat sources, which gave another benefit to the night hunting B-bird.įor reasons of balance, the B-bird often waits for one sidewinder to attach to each wing before taking off. So B-bird adapted by developing the B-plumage, with no hard-to-cling-to plumage in the middle, just bone, skin and sinew, a hard point, if you will. B-bird meanwhile benefited because the ruckus caused by the sidewinders dropping into treetops gave them opportunity to ambush some critters that normally kept a low profile. So the snakes adapted to not obstruct B-bird overly much. This was actually a bonus for the snakes as they thus gained easy access to treetops where a good harvest of nestlings awaited. The B-Bird was too big for this tactic, so it took the snakes aloft, loosing them after a struggle. There was this little inedible snake (let's say a sidewinder, because those are heat seeking species) that snuck up on and entangled birds' wings in the night to exhaust them and finally eat them.
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