On the Wing: Insects, Pterosaurs, Birds, Bats and the Evolution of Animal Flight

225 Pages·2015·9.29 MB·English

by  David E. Alexander

On the Wing

On the Wing
Insects, Pterosaurs, Birds, Bats
and the Evolution of Animal Flight
David E. Alexander
Illustrations by Sara L. Taliaferro
1
1
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Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file at the Library of Congress
9780199996773
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Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
To the late Larry Martin
gone too soon

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Note on Sources xi
1. Can’t Tell the Players without a Scorecard 1
2. Theme and Variations: Similarities and Differences among
Nature’s Flyers 21
3. How to Fly? 39
4. Gliding Animals: Flight without Power 60
5. Insects: First to Fly 74
6. Birds: The Feathered Flyers 103
7. Bats: Wings in the Dark 130
8. Pterosaurs: Bygone Dragons 147
9. Pedestrians Descended from Flyers: Loss of Flight 164
10. Unifying Themes? 173
Bibliography 183
Index 197

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book had an amazingly long gestation. I wrote the first draft of the
first chapter in 2002. Between then and now, I talked to many people
about the evolution of flight, and while I may have forgotten some of the
conversations or people, they nevertheless helped shape my thinking on
the topic.
Many of these conversations were with my colleagues at the University
of Kansas, including Ron Barrett-Gonzalez, Dave Burnham, George Byers,
Amanda Falk, Rudolf Jander, Matt Jones, and Bob Timm, as well as the
many students in my Animal Flight Seminar over the years. Ed Wiley,
Bruce Lieberman, and Michael Engel all helped this non-systematist un-
derstand (and keep from embarrassing myself with) phylogenetic system-
atics. Mark Robbins showed me museum specimens when I needed to see
details of bird anatomy and feather structure and answered many orni-
thological questions. I learned a lot about paleontology, dinosaurs, and
birds from the many hours I spent in the lab of the late Larry Martin; no
one enjoyed a good argument or took it less personally than Larry. Larry’s
former student, Chris Bennett, patiently and thoroughly answered my
many e-mails with questions about pterosaurs. I also discussed animal
flight or flight evolution at various times with Roy Beckemeyer, Kristin
Bishop, Sankar Chatterjee, Jeff Dawson and his grad student Ryan Chle-
bak, Robert Dudley, Jimmy McGuire, the late John McMasters, Jake
Socha, Sharon Swartz, Jim Usherwood, and Steve Yanoviak, and there
were probably others whom I am sorry to say I have forgotten. Chris Ben-
nett, Robert Dudley, Nick Longrich, and Jake Socha each read and com-
mented on a chapter, and comments from two anonymous reviewers who
heroically read the entire manuscript significantly improved the final ver-
sion. Any mistakes or inaccuracies that may remain are, of course, my re-
sponsibility. Sara Taliaferro drew most of the illustrations; hers say
“(courtesy of S. T.)” in the figure legend. Also, Roy Beckemeyer and my son,
Kevin Alexander, each drew a figure. (If no credit is listed with a figure, it
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