12:17 13-10-2011

Jan

Anthony: I imagined something more like a web. Or moving through the water from forth to back. But still there are serious obstacles.

00:15 11-10-2011

Anthony

Jan...
I wasn't going to ask for details -- just point out that legs make good brakes when they hit the water.
(ask fishing bats if you don't believe me - slows them down considerably)

11:39 09-10-2011

Mexanik

Four silly concepts of alien walking %)
http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/3408/walkingwith.jpg
Purple - ediacarian-looking organism with asymmetric legs.
Yellow - rolling "slinky spring" creature with two or more limbs.
Red and blue - skating and skiing locomotion for snow creatures.

19:33 08-10-2011

Jan

Anthony: Yes. Do not ask for details, though

17:28 08-10-2011

William Stephens

Mexanic
Just just for your information the big spike plate is called a rear skid.
Perhaps you could draw some inspiration from http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/alienplanet/slideshows/animals/animal_slideshow.html or http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/alienplanet/slideshows/animals/part2/animal_slideshow2.html

15:07 08-10-2011

Anthony

Jan - getting the plankton caught on the legs, then eating it later? (or am I misreading your post?)

09:32 08-10-2011

Jan

What about large baleens protruding out of the mouth, like in sabertooth? Or using hair/feathers of the legs?

19:57 07-10-2011

Evan Black

Yes, there are seabirds that catch fish on the wing. That's because they're catching FISH, which will swim away if they see a gull or gannet just swim on over to them. Plankton doesn't swim away though, so there's no real reason for wavecutters to sneak up on it.

Energy expenditure may be an issue as well, so let's explore it. The bigger the bird the harder it is to maintain flight, so using an efficient method of flight is ideal. But also, the bigger the bird the harder it is to execute dynamic flight; if the algae it eats is widespread (and some blooms can get quite large), this might not be too much of a problem. The wavecutter can just dip down to scoop up a bite to maintain its metabolism. But if food only occurs in small clumps then the wavecutter will have to be able to turn around and go back for more; it's simply not designed for that. A better strategy in this case would be to plop in the water and sieve out the plankton; when it's time to go, take flight again. Waterfowl do this, and some geese can be quite large. Those honkers fly like 747's, but because their feeding spots are so small and their food doesn't run away they can afford the second takeoff.

Hovering works for small birds (watch a tern or a harrier) but is not easy at all for large flyers. Flying at all is difficult for larger species and requires a great deal of energy, which is why so many of them soar.

A pelican beak will catch a lot of water, which could potentially play havoc with the wavecutter's center of gravity. A much better design would be something more like a flamingo, only angled in such a way as to strain particles from the water as it runs through. I'm imagining a general shape kind of like the beak of the peko-peko:

http://www.rpgplanet.com/starwars/pics/peko-s.jpg

10:33 07-10-2011

Mexanik

Okay, so imagine wavecutter with a pelican beak =) That was one of the first concepts.

For the latest blog post: new types of odd walking.
1) Ediacaran type: asymmetric location of legs (for example 3 left and 4 right, or 2 and 3, or 100 and 101...)
2) Walking spring type: one leg on the top and one on the bottom, "rolling" style of walk.
3) Skiing type: something like groveback from Darwin IV but that big spike on the bottom back is skate-like plate; or 1-4 legs always touch th ground (or snow?) and other used for locomotion.

07:42 07-10-2011

Luke

(Sorry for posting twice)

Also, the animal could fly into the wind to fly slowly or hover, eliminating the possibility of breaking its neck upon high-speed impact with the water.

07:38 07-10-2011

Spugpow aka Luke

Actually, I'm pretty sure there are seabirds that snatch fish with their beaks on the wing. This is probably due to the great energy expenditure required for large soaring birds to take off from the water. For an even larger gliding creature like Mexanik's, not landing could make even more sense from an energy perspective.

15:19 06-10-2011

Evan Black

Also, I see from the diagram that the skimmer is taking its bites out of a breaking wave, which only occur near the beaches. If such is the case, that lowers the chance that large predators will be waiting in the water, or that they will be able to successfully hide. If, however, your intentions were for the skimmer to hunt out in the ocean, the waves would more resemble large swells, and we're back to the idea of large pelagic predators laying in wait to snatch the skimmers out of the air. I still wonder why they would do that; I mean, what about all the other food in the sea? Why not eat them instead of relying solely on skimmers? This takes some pressure off the skimmer so it can relax and settle into the water and actually eat more of its food than just a gulp at a time. Seabirds today do this, and are even eaten by sharks, but there hasn't been enough evolutionary pressure for them to take on a skimmer-like strategy, so why has the skimmer done so?

The concept is interesting, but I don't yet see its evolutionary logic.

14:57 06-10-2011

Anthony Docimo

well, it all depends on if the jet is acting alone or in concert with something else - be it gliding apparatus, a boyant bubble body, etc.

So the Wavecutter basically goes faster in the air, right before putting the jaw into water moving in the opposite direction? That's a good way to lose a jaw.

Last I heard, Pterodaustros were not skimmers, they were basically flamingos.

10:35 06-10-2011

Mexanik

William,
I rarely draw in scale %) That was only quick sketches.
Animals with long wings usually glide without flaps, only if they must increase height of the flight. Skewer looks nice, but I think it is not effective because jets need too much fuel. That's why I rejected the idea of making "hoverbugs" on Wastorum. Jets are good underwater, but not in the air.

I thought about how wavecutter "hunts":
It soars high above the water searching for "soup spots" in waves. Then it glides down at high speed simultaneously opening mouth. When there are a few meters to the wave its "cheeks" or some things on the mandible expand horisontally making the beak looking like vacuum cleaner tube. Then it "cuts off" top of the wave _across_ the plane, draws head to the belly making water draining through the "whalebone" on the maxilla, and immediately starts flapping its wings to fly higher. Then it straightens the neck, swallows "the soup" and starts searching for the next wave %)

Jan,
Why not? =) There could be niches in ecosystem that aren't filled on Earth. Pterodaustro is amazingly cool, but it is also skimmer.

02:04 06-10-2011

Jan

I think that pteranodonts have much more effective way, why trying something more complicated and less workable? http://reptilis.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/779px-pterodaustro_bw.jpg

Btw, I am thinking about some "long distance weapon" like chameleon tongue, mantis claws, conus harpoon or dragonfly jaws. What about stream of water like in archerfish or pistol shrimps? Neocarnivores already have some crustacean inspiration, some amphibian version could use this.

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