Cryptozoological Evolution

[noz92]

I believe in many different cryptozoological creatures, such as bigfoot. Some creatures' evolutionary history seems strange. For example, the Animal Planet did a show on the existence of dragons. I never actually watched it, but my friend and I were discussing it. During this discussion one of us asked how they would get they're wings.

 

In animals such as birds, the wings come from arms, but with creatures like this already have four legs. We could't name a single vertibate that has six legs. Where would wings come from on creatures like this?

[coquina]

I believe in many different cryptozoological creatures' date=' such as bigfoot. Some creatures' evolutionary history seems strange. For example, the Animal Planet did a show on the existence of dragons. I never actually watched it, but my friend and I were discussing it. During this discussion one of us asked how they would get they're wings.

 

In animals such as birds, the wings come from arms, but with creatures like this already have four legs. We could't name a single vertibate that has six legs. Where would wings come from on creatures like this?[/quote']

 

Why would you "believe in" (perhaps 'accept the possibility of the existance of' is a better term) such creatures?

 

As for the dragon - it is based or Chinese and Oriental mythology. There is some information here:

http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/goldendawn/102/Dragons/chinese.html

 

It doesn't appear that people believed the dragon was a flesh and blood entity.

 

As far as other cultures believing that they actually existed, maybe the incomplete fossils of two extinct animals were found that people took as one complete one (that is pure speculation on my part).

[Mokele]

We could't name a single vertibate that has six legs. Where would wings come from on creatures like this?

 

Nowhere, hence why dragons (at least as they're envisioned in european myth) cannot exist.

 

Of course, that leaves aside the problems of an animal that large flying; most of the pterosaurs that had wingspans over 20 feet has bones so thin you could easily crush their entire ribcage with a punch.

 

It doesn't appear that people believed the dragon was a flesh and blood entity.

 

Ironicly, one chinese dragon *is* flesh and blood, the Tung Long ("muddy dragon"), who lives in ponds and streams, and whose roars bring storms. You can even ask natives on Anhui province to show you them; they'll point straight to one of the few remaining wild Chinese Alligators. But to them, it's a dragon.

 

Of course, one cannot escape the irony that China's population boom and the argiculture needed to feed all those people has almost killed off the flesh-and-blood chinese dragon in the wild. Less and 50 left, and only 1 wild nest in the past decade.

 

Mokele

[Flareon]

In animals such as birds, the wings come from arms, but with creatures like this already have four legs. We could't name a single vertibate that has six legs. Where would wings come from on creatures like this?

 

I'm not certain this would work, but perhaps the scapula (shoulder blade)?

[AzurePhoenix]

Couldn't extra limbs start out from non-limb structures? Like say some lizard develops a double-row of sail membranes like a sinosaurus or amargosaurus. The spines develope muscles of a type to let the rep spread them out to catch sun. If small and arboreal, say these become useful in gliding. Stronger and stronger musculature developes aong the scapula or the projections of the spine, along with bony projections. Couldn't these eventually evolve into wings of some sort? Disn't longisguama or something evolve in a vaguely similar fassion as this? Of course, such whings would't be bat or pterosaur-like, due to a lack of fingers.

[ecoli]

Couldn't extra limbs start out from non-limb structures? Like say some lizard develops a double-row of sail membranes like a sinosaurus or amargosaurus. The spines develope muscles of a type to let the rep spread them out to catch sun. If small and arboreal, say these become useful in gliding. Stronger and stronger musculature developes aong the scapula or the projections of the spine, along with bony projections. Couldn't these eventually evolve into wings of some sort? Disn't longisguama or something evolve in a vaguely similar fassion as this? Of course, such whings would't be bat or pterosaur-like, due to a lack of fingers.

 

unless it evolved fingers too. Given the current theory of evolution, I'd say this could be reasonable...albeit lengthy process.

[AzurePhoenix]

Dude, we've got nothin' but time.

[Mokele]

It could happen as described, but would take a *LONG* time, and all intermediates would have to offer advantage over the prior situation (hardly a given).

 

Alternatively, it could happen the same way we got our legs in the first place: duplications of the HOX cluster of genes, which control limb development (among other things). This sort of duplication could conceivably happen in one mutation, and from there, the extra limbs could become wings. Assuming that no horrible developmental disorders resulted, as they often do when HOX is tinkered with.

 

Mokele

[Sorcerer]

Wasn't a 6 legged horse born dead after Chernobyl. What mutation caused that?

[AzurePhoenix]

and frogs have metamorphosized with over a dozen limbs. But I've never heard of such a mutation having benefits to the organim. Seems to me that spontaneously devloped limbs aren't the way to go. If a six-limbed vertabrate's gonna evolve, it'll have to do so te hard way, old-school yo.

[Mokele]

Wasn't a 6 legged horse born dead after Chernobyl. What mutation caused that?

 

No idea if it's true or not, but if it was near Chernobyl, that was almost definitely not the only thing wrong with it. Probably a similar mutation to what I described about, though.

 

and frogs have metamorphosized with over a dozen limbs. But I've never heard of such a mutation having benefits to the organim.

 

Well, with the frogs, it's not a mutation, but a developmental disruption caused by external chemicals (pollution).

 

Such things only rarely do produce benefits, but in certain circumstances, they can. Remember, unless it's outright sterilizing or lethal, a mutation's value is primarily a function of ecology.

 

Seems to me that spontaneously devloped limbs aren't the way to go. If a six-limbed vertabrate's gonna evolve, it'll have to do so te hard way, old-school yo.

 

But this *is* old-school; it's where fish got their fins and we got our legs. Alterations in developmental genes are a major catalyst for evolution.

 

Mokele

[Hellbender]

Of course, one cannot escape the irony that China's population boom and the argiculture needed to feed all those people has almost killed off the flesh-and-blood chinese dragon in the wild. Less and 50 left, and only 1 wild nest in the past decade.

 

Really? I knew their status was critical, but this is really bad. What efforts are currently being made to help these alligators?

[Hellbender]

In animals such as birds, the wings come from arms, but with creatures like this already have four legs. We could't name a single vertibate that has six legs. Where would wings come from on creatures like this?

 

first you have to accept that dragons have the possibility of having been real. All tetrapods have 4 limbs, and evolution has resulted in some flying animals (bats, pterosaurs, birds, to be exact) with the gradual modification of the forelimbs into usable wings, and other adaptations that enable them to fly, such as hollow bones and the like. So even if dragons were real, they would not have forelimbs, but instead have wings and hind legs. Another thing to consider is that all the idead of mythical dragons I have seen don't seem to have the ideal bodies for flight. Simply having wings doesn't guarantee it will be able to fly well, numerous adaptations must exist as well.

[coquina]

I caught a snippet of the animal planet program the OP referred to, somewhere in the middle. Since I didn't see the beginning, I can't say how it was prefaced, but the part that I did see showed the "dragon" flying over a ravine. The voice-over said something to the effect that the dragon evolved its wings so it could fly over the extreme terraine. It had flown across the ravine into a bamboo thicket and was hiding there. A tiger approached. The voice over said, "she knows the cat is curious because it is a feline, so she rustles the bushes" - with that, the tiger dissappeared into it, and the next thing you saw was the dragon dragging the tiger away by the tail.

 

I certainly hope they made a statement at the beginning about how this was all phantasy and conjecture, but anyone who turned the program on in the middle and didn't know better (especially young people), might have taken it for fact.

 

Now I understand more clearly why the OP posed the question as s/he did.

[AzurePhoenix]

Yeah, *old school* is only possible at all through mutation, but what I'm saying is generally the mutations start small and progress, and are not as disruptive as a spontaneous and disfiguring third arm sticking outa the middle of my chest.

 

And I watched that Dragon thing. It was cool, but it didn't take the time to address the issue of how they got six limbs, or how the fire ability evolved. Talked about how the animal operated, but not how it became what it was, and it spent very little talking about the natural history of each species. Rather dissapointing, but when these types of docs come out on DVD, they usually have tons of extra footage. Here's to hoping.

[Auburngirl05]

Wasn't a 6 legged horse born dead after Chernobyl. What mutation caused that?

 

 

In the case of something involving radiation, like Chernobyl, it was probably a mutation, but sometimes I think that deformities like that result from a parasitic/undifferentiated twin, I have heard about several cases of humans having "spare body parts" like that from the remains of a twin.

[Sorcerer]

and frogs have metamorphosized with over a dozen limbs. But I've never heard of such a mutation having benefits to the organim. Seems to me that spontaneously devloped limbs aren't the way to go. If a six-limbed vertabrate's gonna evolve, it'll have to do so te hard way, old-school yo.

 

Im not sure what ur trying to say, but it sounds like you mean the only way a 6 limbed vertebrate could evolve is if the same mutations from ancestral deuterostomes that formed tetrapods, occured in modern deuterostomes like angnatha and produced 6 limbs instead of 4...... heaxapods so to speak.

 

Lobe-finned fishes have 5 "limbs"(fins) and a tail, the symmetry is already in place for tetrapods, the "mountain has already been climbed" and descending the slope to climb back up mount hexapod would be the road to extinction.....

 

Any fish out there with the right number of fins? If they occur in the right environment they might become terrestrial.

[Mokele]

Really? I knew their status was critical, but this is really bad. What efforts are currently being made to help these alligators?

 

Well, it's only half the story. The other half is that they breed like guppies in captivity, and we've got over 20,000 total in various reserves. The main obstacle is habitat, but the Chinese government has recently decided to make them a big priority (like panda-level priority), and they've begun reclaiming habitat.

 

Any fish out there with the right number of fins? If they occur in the right environment they might become terrestrial.

 

Yes and no.

 

The Acanthodian fish possessed several "extra fins" compared to other fish lineages, and could have produced 8-legged land vertebrates.

 

However, you probably noticed the use of the paste tense in that sentence; that lineage of fish has been extinct for over 270 million years. To the best of my knowledge, nothing in the Chordate line before or since has had more than 4 limbs.

 

Mokele

[AzurePhoenix]

Chinese government has recently decided to make them a big priority (like panda-level priority)' date=' and they've begun reclaiming habitat.

 

Mokele[/quote']

 

Well it's about time. Those little guys are SOOOOOO CUUUUTE!!!!

[Sorcerer]

Wasn't the last surviving, acanthodian found off the coast of madagascar in the deep sea, well anyway, right number of fins, wrong environment.

[Sorcerer]

woops nm that was coelocanths.

[Hellbender]

woops nm that was coelocanths.

 

yeah, but the gombessa is not the only extant sarcopterygian, 2 families of lungfish are still alive too.

[Hellbender]

Well, it's only half the story. The other half is that they breed like guppies in captivity, and we've got over 20,000 total in various reserves. The main obstacle is habitat, but the Chinese government has recently decided to make them a big priority (like panda-level priority), and they've begun reclaiming habitat.

 

Thats good to hear. Its good to see something like an alligator, which many people don't seem to like particularly get the same treatment of a "cute" animal like a giant panda.

[Guest savoy7]

One theory on wings for insects deals with wings initially being used to absorb heat. Larger surface area for the sun to warm up.

 

Now, as for dragons - I haven't seen any proof - are they cold or warm blooded. If they are cold, wings could have provided an extra heating surface when they lounge around in the sun.

[Hellbender]

Now, as for dragons - I haven't seen any proof - are they cold or warm blooded. If they are cold, wings could have provided an extra heating surface when they lounge around in the sun.

 

we are still discussing dragons from a mythological standpoint, right? Good. In most pictures of dragons I have seen there is a glaring problem, besides that they have 3 sets of flimbs, is that where are the flight muscles supposedly attached? All I see is batlike wings thrown on a bulky dragon body. It would take some big muscles and bones for their attachment for the things to even try and fly.