Animal Movement: Flight Flashcards
List some flight adaptations in birds that were exapted from ancestors with other functions?
- Long fingers from raking motion of prey capture
- Flight feathers from downy feathers that provided insulation
- Wishbone from the clavicle
- Hollow bones and air sacs from dinosaurs.
How do birds increase lift?
- camber /curve of the wing
- Angle of attack of the wing
- Alula helps direct smooth airflow and reduce stalling at low speeds.
What does the inner wing help with?
Lift
What does the outer wing help with?
Thrust
What muscle and bone is primarily used to create the downstroke?
The contraction of the Pectoralis and the sternum and its keel.
What muscles and osteo-anatomy help make the upstroke?
Supracoracoideus, deltoid, Teres major & Latissimus dorsi muscles help generate.
The hole in the joints of the bones called the foreman triossium lets through the supracoracoideus to help this.
What adaptations help with the high Oxygen use neccessary for flight?
- Red blood cells are nucleated and smaller, greater SA:V allows for faster gas exchange
- Unidirectional flow lungs and air sacs increase efficiency,
What is induced drag?
At wing tips, air moves from high pressure (below wing) to low pressure (above wing) and creates a curling vortex.
How does a bird overcome induced drag?
Minimised by the spaces between feathers at tips, spreading the vorticity horizontally and vertically.
What is friction drag?
The friction between air and the bird moving through the air
How does a bird overcome friction drag?
Minimised by the wing’s thin leading edge (slicing through air).
What is wing loading and how does it affect birds of similar functionalities but different sizes?
Birds with lower wing loading (mass/wing surface area) g/cm-squared need less power to sustain flight.
Among functionally similar birds, wing loading tends to increase with size.
