[PDF] Biology Of Gliding Mammals eBook

Author : Stephen Matthew Jackson
Publisher : CSIRO PUBLISHING
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 45,16 MB
Release : 2012
Category : Nature
ISBN : 0643092609

GET BOOK

This book provides a synthesis of all that is known about the biology of gliding mammals. It includes a brief description of each species, together with a map and a full-colour painting. It outlines the origins and biogeography of each group of gliding mammals and examines the incredible physical adaptations.

Author : Sneed B. Collard
Publisher : Tilbury House Publishers and Cadent Publishing
Page : 42 pages
File Size : 31,46 MB
Release : 2017-03-28
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 0884485390

GET BOOK

*Junior Library Guild Selection 2017* Only a few dozen vertebrate animals have evolved true gliding abilities, but they include an astonishing variety of mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. North America’s flying squirrels and Australia’s sugar gliders notwithstanding, the vast majority of them live in rainforests. Illustrated with arresting photographs, Catching Air takes us around the world to meet these animals, learn why so many gliders live in Southeast Asia, and find out why this gravity-defying ability has evolved in Draco lizards, snakes, and frogs as well as mammals. Why do gliders stop short of flying, how did bats make that final leap, and how did Homo sapiens bypass evolution to glide via wingsuits and hang gliders—or is that evolution in another guise? Fountas & Pinnell Level R

Author : Aleksandra A. Panyutina
Publisher : Springer
Page : 323 pages
File Size : 20,28 MB
Release : 2015-03-13
Category : Science
ISBN : 3319087568

GET BOOK

This book offers a new explanation for the development of flight in mammals and offers detailed morphological descriptions of mammals with flapping flight. The skeletomuscular apparatus of the shoulder girdle and forelimbs of tree shrews, flying lemurs and bats is described in detail. Special attention is paid to the recognition of peculiar features of the skeleton and joints. For the basic locomotor patterns of flying lemurs and bats, the kinematic models of the shoulder girdle elements are developed. The most important locomotor postures of these animals are analyzed by means of statics. The key structural characters of the shoulder girdle and forelimbs of flying lemurs and bats, the formation of which provided transition of mammals from terrestrial locomotion to gliding and then, to flapping flight, are recognized. The concept is proposed that preadaptations preceding the acquisition of flapping flight could have come from widely sprawled forelimb posture while gliding from tree to tree and running up the thick trunks. It is shown that flying lemur is an adequate morphofunctional model for an ancestral stage of bats. The evolutionary ecomorphological scenario describing probable transformational stages of typical parasagittal limbs of chiropteran ancestors into wings is developed.

Author : Dr. David E. Alexander
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 29,19 MB
Release : 2015
Category : Science
ISBN : 0199996776

GET BOOK

"On the Wing is the first book to take a comprehensive look at the evolution of flight in all four groups of powered flyers: insects, pterosaurs, birds, and bats."--Book jacket.

Author : Thomas Stainforth Kemp
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 169 pages
File Size : 33,94 MB
Release : 2017
Category : Nature
ISBN : 0198766947

GET BOOK

Relative newcomers within the story of evolution, mammals are hugely successful and have colonized land, water, and air. Tom Kemp discusses the great diversity of mammalian species, and looks at how their very disparate characteristics, physiologies, and behaviours are all largely driven by one uniting factor: endothermy, or warm-bloodedness.

Author : Stephen Jackson
Publisher : CSIRO PUBLISHING
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 33,49 MB
Release : 2012-08-09
Category : Science
ISBN : 0643104062

GET BOOK

The world's gliding mammals are an extraordinary group of animals that have the ability to glide from tree to tree with seemingly effortless grace. There are more than 60 species of gliding mammals including the flying squirrels from Asia, Europe and North America, the scaly-tailed flying squirrels from central Africa and the gliding possums of Australia and New Guinea. But the most spectacular of all are the colugos – or so called flying lemurs – that occur throughout South-East Asia and the Philippines. Animals that glide from tree to tree descend at an angle of less than 45 degrees to the horizontal, while those that parachute descend at an angle greater than 45 degrees. Gliding is achieved by deflecting air flowing past well-developed gliding membranes, or patagia, which form an effective airfoil that allows the animal to travel the greatest possible horizontal distance with the least loss in height. The flying squirrels and scaly-tailed flying squirrels even have special cartilaginous spurs that extend either from the wrist or elbow, respectively, to help support the gliding membrane. Gliding Mammals of the World provides, for the first time, a synthesis of all that is known about the biology of these intriguing mammals. It includes a brief description of each species, together with a distribution map and a beautiful full-colour painting. An introduction outlines the origins and biogeography of each group of gliding mammals and examines the incredible adaptations that allow them to launch themselves and glide from tree to tree.

Author : Joseph F. Merritt
Publisher : JHU Press
Page : 334 pages
File Size : 14,18 MB
Release : 2010-03-09
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0801879507

GET BOOK

Animals of this size face different physiological and ecological challenges than larger mammals.

Author : R. McNeill Alexander
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 20,65 MB
Release : 2006-03-19
Category : Science
ISBN : 0691126348

GET BOOK

How can geckoes walk on the ceiling and basilisk lizards run over water? What are the aerodynamic effects that enable small insects to fly? What are the relative merits of squids' jet-propelled swimming and fishes' tail-powered swimming? Why do horses change gait as they increase speed? What determines our own vertical leap? Recent technical advances have greatly increased researchers' ability to answer these questions with certainty and in detail. This text provides an up-to-date overview of how animals run, walk, jump, crawl, swim, soar, hover, and fly. Excluding only the tiny creatures that use cilia, it covers all animals that power their movements with muscle--from roundworms to whales, clams to elephants, and gnats to albatrosses. The introduction sets out the general rules governing all modes of animal locomotion and considers the performance criteria--such as speed, endurance, and economy--that have shaped their selection. It introduces energetics and optimality as basic principles. The text then tackles each of the major modes by which animals move on land, in water, and through air. It explains the mechanisms involved and the physical and biological forces shaping those mechanisms, paying particular attention to energy costs. Focusing on general principles but extensively discussing a wide variety of individual cases, this is a superb synthesis of current knowledge about animal locomotion. It will be enormously useful to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and a range of professional biologists, physicists, and engineers.

Author : Stephen Matthew Jackson
Publisher :
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 40,4 MB
Release : 2012
Category : Diprotodontia
ISBN :

GET BOOK

There are 64 species of extant gliding mammals that are currently recognized, which are divided into six different families. These comprise eight species of gliding marsupials that live within Australasia and include six species of lesser gliding possums of Petaurus (family Petauridae), one species of greater glider of Petauroides (family Pseudocheiridae), and one species of feathertail glider of Acrobates (family Acrobatidae). The flying squirrels of the tribe Pteromyini within the rodent family Sciuridae represent the greatest diversity of gliding mammals, with a total of 48 species in 15 genera currently recognized, and occur throughout Asia, Europe, and North America. A second group of gliding rodents, known as the scaly-tailed flying squirrels, comprises six species from the family Anomaluridae that live in central and western Africa. The most specialized and unique of the extant gliding mammals are the enigmatic colugos, or flying lemurs, of the order Dermoptera that comprise two species and occur throughout Southeast Asia and the Philippines. In addition to the extant species there are various fossils of extinct species that are thought to have had an ability to glide, although there has been a lot of debate over most of these taxa. These fossil taxa include 3 marsupials, 18 dermopterans, 51 flying squirrels, 7 species of scaly-tailed flying squirrels, and 1 extinct species in each of the families Myoxidae, Eomyidae, and Volaticotheriidae. The taxonomic status of many living and extinct gliding mammals is still in a state of flux, and significant further revision of the taxonomic status of many groups still needs to be resolved.