AVian Fingers and Tails - Writers Forum

Creator · 04-17-2007, 04:31 AM

This is key concept I am tryoing out which is rooted in reality.

I want to know if birds had fingers and tails and I wonder if the genes can be reactivated.

Faustling · 04-17-2007, 08:08 AM

Well, I'm no expert but if I remember correctly birds evolved from dinosaurs and similar creatures so there should be tail-genes somewhere, not so sure about the fingers though. Whether or not they can be reactivated is hard to say, if the genes are there and you got some high-tec sci-fi equipment I guess it's possible but it's really your call.

But like I said, I'm no expert so don't sue me if I'm wrong.

Benjirama · 04-17-2007, 08:25 AM

Hmmm not too sure as to how it would work but after a large number of generations you possibly could. There are numerous cases of various animal genus loseing a ceritan trait and then regaining it some few million years later.

What you are talking about could be epigenetics. Some genes get switched on and off during our lives this can have unforseen conquences for our offspring. It also explains the massive varity in the human populace despite having what many assumed to be a small number of genomes.

Epigentics is a very, very new field however so much of its findings maybe spurious.

Mike C · 04-17-2007, 09:08 AM

If you look at a bird's skeleton, particularly the wing, there are the equivalent of vestigial fingers, likewise the tail. This is an archaeopterix, an ancestor of today's birds, which shows fingers and tails:

And this is more up to date, showing digits, and pygostyle (tail):

Can they be reactivated? You're the writer - find a way.

TexasMel · 04-17-2007, 07:58 PM

Ohboy. More science 101!

Let me add (before you think I'm a walking encyclopedia) that I volunteer in a museum's paleontology lab and I'm helping dig fossils out of rocks. So I talk to my very favorite paleontologist at least once a week (in between making a LOT of rock dust as I dig out that bone!)

The basic "designs" are seen again and again in nature. In other words, things like saber teeth in felines didn't appear in just one group but arose in several different groups over millions and millions of years. Wings of course evolved in birds (and "de-evolved" in some groups) and pterosaurs and bats and so forth.

The bird's wing is actually a modified hand. The radius and ulna shown there are your lower armbones, and there's a fused set of bones at the "wrist" that are the carpals. The fingers are the 'metacarpals'. Note that there's a thumb bone there.

HOWEVER... just because a thing has a hand, this does not mean that they can manipulate tools like humans can. There's a relationship of the length of the thumb and the position of the thumb to the fingers (the "opposable thumb") that makes tool use possible. Chimps, monkeys, and apes can manipulate tools but not with the dexterity that we can.

Creator · 04-18-2007, 12:58 AM

I heard that genetic errors do happen with animals but rarely but "if that error is beneficial", it's up to imagination or Nature to see if it's beneficial at all!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:B...lphin_hind.jpg

Cy Skywalker · 04-26-2007, 08:45 AM

That skeleton and info should tell you what you need to know. There is a modern bird, in South Africa I think, which has clawed "fingers" at bird. They are lost, but they are dextrous and almost exactly like the "fingers" of the Archeopteryx, the proposed dinosaur-bird cross.

I don't know if genetics can bring back ancestral features like you're suggesting, but Jurassic Park science was explained well enough when it probably couldn't actually work, so if you take that tack your concept has a chance.

Creator · 04-26-2007, 09:20 AM

Here is one concept I am looking at....

Cy Skywalker · 04-26-2007, 12:29 PM

Nice concept art! I'm so glad someone else does that too.

I don't quite see how that final arm is going to bend. If the armbone's rotation is limited as a wing's is, the creature would only be able to move the arm to its sides. I guess an alien culture can be built around that. The hooked claw looks a little unwieldy, like it'd bump into the others and is too toward the inside for attacking. Does it serve a certain function?

Perhaps these comments are irrelevant. I'm still glad your art reminds me of mine. I havn't done that in a while...

Do you mind saying what you're using this creature or concept for?

Creator · 04-26-2007, 08:24 PM

http://www.writingforums.com/showthread.php?t=76423

It's a monster cum Al Gore's environmentalism piece of fic.

The Birds on the Bird Sanctuary Islands are endemic to their islands and are weird!

Cause 50% of the birds there are flightless, but in exchange for their loss of flight they have evolved into many types beyond yours wildest dreams. Like say some birds reevolved their tails and some reevolved their wings back into hands! And quadrupedism has allowed my birds to occupy niches that mammals should be occupying elsewhere.

Creator · 01-21-2008, 11:45 PM

After at least many months and I decided to revive this thread. Ok I managed to find a lot of data after a lot of months of absence.

From What I observed from this article above, I see that there is a chance that the genes can be reactivated but if the change were to be natural. Will the resulting bird have only two functional fingers and one stubby one?