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Why Bats Are One of Evolution’s Greatest Puzzles
Paleontologists seek the ancestors that could explain how bats became the only flying mammals.
Palaeochiropteryx

By Riley Black
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
APRIL 21, 2020 8:00AM

[smithsonianmag.com]

t1nick 8 Apr 21
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0

Great story. But one thing that it does not address is the on going debate about whether they evolved twice, once for the small insectivorous species and once for the fruit bats, which was an idea once, but which has been questioned I believe.

Fernapple Level 9 Apr 22, 2020
0

Well, I tend to see it that 'nature' tries to fill any and niches in the ecosystem so that no niche species goes through without one form or another of predator and thus, overruns the whole system.
After all, did not the Pterasaurs ( flying Dinosaurs) evolve from small to medium sized land and arboreal dwelling dinosaurs, first gaining the advantages of merely 'gliding' from limb to limb, tree to tree to catch insects ( much much bigger than we have around today btw) who ruled the skies day and night some 65+ Million years ago?
Are not our modern birds merely an evolutionary result of these and those feathered types of dinosaurs that are found in the fossil records almost everywhere in the world?
Even today we have lizards with large, sail like skin extensions running from the fore limbs to the hind limbs that they can extend and retract at will so they can glide from tree to tree, we have Sugar Gliders, a species of mammal, that also have the same acoutrements as these 'gliding lizards so why not have it that a species from the genus of Mammalia can evolve and learn to fly and take over the job of predating on the insect populations as bats do.

Triphid Level 9 Apr 21, 2020

One interesting point. Birds are considered dinosaurs so to speak, due to their direct descent and closeness of evolution in time. Pterosaurs and birds actually are not related. Two completely different lineages.

@t1nick Yes, but modern birds are an end product of the evolution of the feathered terestrial dinosaurs, the Therapod dinosaurs are they not?
And nobody can say for absolute certainity as whether or not dinosaurs or even pterasaurs were exothermic or endothermic though I tend to think that they would most likely have been warm-blooded given the amount of time, etc, that would be required for them to 'warm up' as we see with modern reptiles.

@Triphid yes they are part of the Therapod lineage. But Pterasaurs are not the same phylogenetic lineage. It has a completely different lineage.

On intetesresting. phylogrnetically and genetically, the common sparrow is the closest relative to their therapod ancestors of all modern avians.. who would have guessed by looks. Lol

@t1nick Well, in actual fact it seems that Australian Emus and the other kinds of flightless birds ( known scientifically as Ratites ), such as the Rhea, the Ostrich for example, are more likely closer related to the therapod dinosaurs than common sparrows since, for one, the Australian Emu ONLY builds a nest out of dirt on the ground, very little else is used to make this very circular nest with an average diameter of approx. 2 to 2.5 metres.
An emu, as shown in the attached photo, is something I am most fully aware of, the can stand up to 2 metres tall, run at over 30 kilometres per hour, are omnivorous, the females are NOT the ones who incubate, hatch out the young and care and raise them, the males do the whole thing solo, the females are extremely 'promiscuous, mate with every male they can find, lay their eggs into every available nest they can find, no matter who fertilised the eggs in the first place, then simply leave the males to do the work.

@Triphid

I'll have look into that. I have the phylogenetic tree in my classroom for all Therapods. It was one of our special projects in my college geology class last year. I thought I read in my research that the sparrow was the most ancient line in the the
avian family. I'll get back to you on that. You may be right.

@t1nick M8, you only need to see an Emu in action and you start to see a Therapod Dinosaur with brisle type feathers and all, even their claws/feet are the closest thing I've ever seen to a Therapod Dinosaur, 3 toes all armed with thick, solid very sharp nails/claws on the end that can actually rip through the skin of an animal and disembowel it in a matter of seconds, which I've actually seen happen to many a sheep dog when I've worked on Sheep Grazing Properties around here.

2

Wow, and I was more curious about their ability to echolocate, but they aren't the only mammal that can do so.

JimG Level 8 Apr 21, 2020

Except in water of course, where some whales can do it. Convergent evolution.

@Fernapple whales and dolphins. It should be easier in water though.

2

Humans decided how to categorize all the animals , insects , reptiles fish , etc. Humans could as easily have classified them as birds , by limiting the descriptors to flyers .

Cast1es Level 9 Apr 21, 2020
0

Awesome

bobwjr Level 10 Apr 21, 2020
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