The physics and biology of flying mythical beasts (feat. the yogscast)
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- čas přidán 27. 09. 2018
- Get stuck in learning new concepts by solving problems with Brilliant! brilliant.org/simonclark
LINKS
- Dr Evans on twitter: / alexevans91
- DONATE TO DURRELL: www.durrell.org/wildlife/prod...
- Durrell's work: www.durrell.org/wildlife/cons...
- High Rollers: / highrollersdnd
- Hulmes on twitter: / sherlock_hulmes
- Turps on twitter: / the_t
- My previous videos with Durrell: • Durrell Conservation Work
As I say in the video, thank you to Mark and Mark from the Yogscast for helping me with this video! If this goes down well then I'd love to do more videos with the yogscast mixing science, geek culture, and video games - please do suggest videos ideas in the comments!
SOURCES
(1) Mendelsohn et al (1989) www.the-eis.com/data/literatur...
(2) Argentavis Magnificens en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentavis
(3) Golden-crowned flying fox www.iucnredlist.org/details/139/0
(4) Norberg and Norberg (2012) jeb.biologists.org/content/jex...
(5) Pennycuick, C. J. (2008). Modelling the Flying Bird. New York: Academic Press.
(6) Livingstone's fruit bat www.iucnredlist.org/details/18...
You can support the channel by donating at / simonoxfphys
Check out my website! www.simonoxfphys.com/
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Music by Epidemic Sound: epidemicsound.com
Huge thanks to my supporters on Patreon: Dan Hanvey, David Efird, Suzanna Hofman, Amy Hadden, Ethan Fuller, Charles Bray, Jay Wright, Louis Gillet, Michael Phillips, Martin Hermes, Rhys Rickard-Frost, Cameron Matchett, Lachlan Woods, Tim Boxall, Simon Vaes, Gabriele Mozzicato, Jawad Alalasi, Gaia Frazao Nery, Kodzo, Claire Anthony, Eve Dillon, Rowan Gow, Matthias Loos, James Bridges, James Craig, Sanaa Al Derei, Mark Anthony Magro, Liam, Theresa Wang, Wendover Productions, Kendra Johnson, Caitlin Louise, Daniel Blume Høj, Hayley Ward, Leighton Mackenzie, Thusto, Fernán González, Paul Everitt, Kendall Hendrix.
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Vlogs from Oxford students - / oxvlog
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If you're interested in how I made this video, which was definitely way more ambitious than what I've attempted before, then I posted a commentary track on my Patreon explaining how I made the graphics, wrote the script, and approach making these kind of science videos! Available to patrons here: www.patreon.com/posts/commentary-track-21699279
Simon that was a really good video!
Thanks for the video - I used to love role-play as a child, and developing mechanics for representation. Why no mention of insect wings? Also gravity variation for other realms?
You are great man Dr.simon...💜
My dream is I meet you in my life....😊
Hello, soo can you make the most realistic dragon possible?
One interpretation of dragon flight I always found kind of clever was the model presented in the 1982 animated film "The Flight of Dragons", itself based on a speculative natural history book, which makes fire breathing integral to dragon flight.
In that movie, dragons essentially work as gas-filled blimps, using their small wings to propel themselves around, and spewing fire to empty their gas reserves and descend.
Flammable gasses that they naturally create such as could also be contribute to their lift. I mean that bat measurement does not apply to pterodactyl does it?
Wasn't that the Discovery channel mockumentary about how dragons and dinosaurs split off at some point in the Mesozoic era and they basically had two sets of lungs one for regular breathing and another full of hydrogen gas which was used simultaneously for their fire breath ability as well as generating extra lift for flight.
Thank you for inviting me (and Turps, the other Mark) to chat Simon! Was an absolutely brilliant chat! :D
Oh hey Turps! Didn't know you had a second channel.
lol, its hulmes
Considering what you’ve said in recent vlogs about wanting to explain science in a really accessible manner, this really does the trick and feels like a massive step up in production quality and the way it’s all delivered through the many interviews (and you’re previous stuff has been really well put together, this just goes even further).
Never thought I could get so invested in bird wings (that aren’t, like, hot wings).
Tom Nicholas +
I loved how the conclusion presented both sides to whether science is an important factor in fantasy. I personally love the fantastical element and the crazier and more out there the better ;P
Me 20 minutes ago: "PhDs are cool, but there's no way I could get invested enough in one subject for it"
Me now: "I'm getting a PhD in bird flight"
One thing i would've liked looking into is pterodactyls and other flying dinosaurs (Yes i know their wing structures aren't the same). But using information we have on them i would've like to see.
Pterosaurs are estimated to have weighed north of 250kg and all I kept thinking the whole second half of the video was "but what about the pterosaurs, Simon." 😂 Still an awesome video - seems like he's really found his style on this one.
@@GianlucaTruda Most pterosaurs weighed between 180-a bit over 250kg, yes, but the largest of them in the azhdarchidae family were also extremely proficient terrestrial hunters and probably could not sustain flight for as long as a pteranodon whose wings and skeletal structure show that it was a long distance flier, spending most of it's time hunting over open waters. Some researchers even believe that the largest azhdarchidae may have even abandoned flight all together and were terrestrial bound looking at their biology. There is obviously still a chance that they could have flown, but they are heavily adapted for ground life compared to other, earlier pterosaurs.
Shoot, I just posted my thoughts on Pterodactyls before reading this
I personally don't see how pterodactyls fly with wings so oddly shaped.🤔🤔 Maybe they're look has been updated since I last saw one
I think Quetzalcoatlus is anatomy look like dragon
ever heard of the mockumentary called The Last Dragon: a Fantasy Made Real where they not only explain how dragons could breath fire via flammable gases, but also double for the fact that how the gases in their lungs make their body lighter, more suited for said wingspan.
Two questions:
1. Why couldn't a creature evolve duel pectorals?
2. What about the Quetzalcoatlus northropi?
The pectorals have to be connected somewhere in the front. If there's already pectorals, where are they supposed to connect? How can they connect to bone when other muscles are in the way? How can they have room to function if they're directly layered on top of other pectoral muscles? It'd limit motion of both and just wouldn't work. As for the prehistoric creature, they were still fair smaller than most fantasy dragons or anything like that and they had most likely, hollow bones filled with air sacs like modern day birds meaning they could most likely be easily broken by any serious hit from a blunt weapon. They had hardly any tail due to unnecessary weight being added if they had one. They mostly glided as well and some still believe they may have only glided from high up and then walked on the ground. They are believed to have taken off more like a bat I think using all four limbs rather than the usual take off pattern of birds which apparently helps too. The size of them is about the max, they can't have any thick hide or armour, or super large thick necks or tails and so on. Basically, although the degree of how often or how well they could fly is up in the air, they're most likely about the max size and weight you can be to still be able to fly and dragons and such would weigh a ton more.
@@Jhakaro your argument against duel pectorals is very flawed. How big is the body of a mythical 6 limbed creature? Answer: no one knows. The reason we don't have creatures with 4 arms is because evolution leans towards simplicity. 6 limbs would require more information to be sent to the brain, meaning more brain power is required, meaning a longer gestation and learning periods, meaning a higher likelihood of being killed off. All 4 limbed creatures can and would be able to do the same things as a 6 limbed creature. It is not because there isn't enough room - that's such a silly theory to jump to. Please look at the insect world for how many limbs can fit on a body.
Insects have an entirely different mechanical make up than any mammals or reptiles. All of the creatures in mythology are shown to either be mammal or reptile like creatures therefore the insect world has no relevance to it at all. Their bodies work differently. This entire video was about the most common creatures in fantasy that have six limbs and how they couldn't actually fly or have six limbs because of their body types. For a creature that is either a mammal or reptile, being big or small isn't going to make any difference. The pectorals have to connect to something and if there's two sets of pectorals, how and where are they meant to connect relevant to where the wings would be? You can't just place them anywhere on the body, they'd need to be in roughly the same place as a bird's but that would also be where the pectorals are for the arms or front legs and therefore there'd be no way for them to connect to the skeleton in a way that does not disrupt motor function of one or both limbs.
@@Jhakaro why do they need to be placed where birds are? Insects are relevant because they show that given opportunity other creatures with multiple limbs and configurations can exist. A dragon may not be in any way related to a mammal or a bird - that's your own precocious muddying your thought process. They could be a completely different evolutionary line. Perhaps they came from a sea creature that had reason to have 6 or 8 limbs - various fins for example. And over time two of the limbs became unused, like the vestigial limbs in snakes, and became part of the tail. Two become the back legs, two become wings with a stronger bone structure, like shoulder blades or pelvic bone, but across the mid section to support the extra muscle mass. Then finally you have two that become arms or front legs.
Your argument is based on your misunderstanding of how evolution works. If there was reason for an extra set of limbs to exist on a body, then it would. Having wings to fly and arms to fight or pick things up with would be a massive advantage to any creature. But we must consider all the millions of tiny steps before that. There is a logical route between a sea creature and a dragon or any other six limbed creature if evolution had a reason to keep such limbs around during the periods where they would be less useful or cumbersome. It is not because they do not "fit", if evolution deemed them useful they would "fit" in the same way tails fit, or wings fit, or tusks fit, or horns fit, or trunks fit, or feathers fit, or elephants feet fit, or gills fit, or air sacks fit, or giraffes necks fit... Evolution makes things work if they are useful, there just hasn't yet been a use for 6 limbs.
No, a dragon as shown in fiction is usually a mammal or reptile like creature. You can make up some form of insect dragon or something if you want, nobody's stopping you but as depicted in nearly all folklore and media, they could not use six limbs and fly especially at the size they show them to be in most fiction. A set of extra limbs can exist if there's a reason, perhaps...but clearly there isn't a reason, whatsoever for any known mammals or reptiles as far as I am aware. Besides genetic mishaps, no mammals or reptiles have more than four limbs to my current knowledge. There's no reason for a dragon as depicted in most media to even fly or especially breathe fire, even if it was theoretically possible. They'd be apex predators. There'd be no point. If you had small little draconic creatures, they might fly or somehow develop poison spitting or fire breathing like a bombardier beetle (still very unlikely) due to their need for a self defense mechanism if they're otherwise too small and tiny or weak to fend for themselves against larger creatures that hunt them. But a big ass dragon like game of thrones wouldn't need any of it. Even their metabolism would be through the roof causing them to overheat and die trying to fly with all that weight, if they could even get off the ground. Just not energy efficient at all. The amount of food needed to move six limbs at once too as well as fly with all that added weight? They'd have gone extinct before they ever got off the ground...literally.
Arms or front legs would just be extra weight and mostly dead weight restricting them from flying anyway. There'd be absolutely no need for it. Most dragons aren't shown to be able to actually use their front legs for anything but walking and why would a dragon need to walk much when they can fly? They'd spend most of their time lounging or flying/gliding with short bursts of extended ground activity such as walking. Walking would be slower and pointless to a creature that can fly like that besides to land and snatch prey or eat or move into a nest etc.
"there just hasn't been a use for 6 limbs" Yeah, because there is no use for it in such creatures. Not even dinosaurs had them hundreds of millions of years ago. So as far as modern biology is concerned, on an Earth like planet, there is no use for them at all, therefore they won't develop. Is it impossible? Maybe not, but highly improbable. The entire body structure of mammals and reptiles would have to change to fit it but as seen in media, they haven't changed the biology accordingly in any way that makes sense. Your theory is like saying, well why wouldn't nature just make self levitating creatures using electromagnetism? Just because we haven't seen it yet doesn't mean it can't exist which is technically true but it's extremely highly improbable to the point of just saying, no, there's no foreseeable way it could happen.
Loved the video. On the topic of dragon flight, Peter Dickinson has a book called the Flight of Dragons which imagines this very topic. Peter imagines that dragons would fly in a way similar to dirigibles. By using it's hydrochloric stomach acid it would dissolve the bones of the creatures it had eaten to create hydrogen to allow for lift. It's body would be chambered so that it could expand and contract those chambers to expel the gas and control it's buoyancy. The hydrogen it breathed out would be ignited by its own bio electricity with a organ similar to a spark plug in it's mouth. Then the wings would be used for controlling the movement and speed of the dragon but not needed for the lift of the dragon. This is a little of how it may have been possible for dragon flight. Loved the research you did for this video keep making good ones. :)
The only issue I ever had with this explanation was where it kept all that hydrogen when not in use. In the movie, they're shown to expand rapidly and take off quickly. But this implies that 1: they're creating the gas on demand at an alarming rate. Or 2: They're keeping it compressed in their bodies until needed.
The first option really asks a lot of biology. Dissolving bone or rock can get you that hydrogen alright. But you'll need epic levels of hydrochloric acid in order to make enough gas quickly enough. Producing that much acid is going to be demanding in calories and raw materials. Making it a questionable way to survive. More so when the dragons are clearly big enough to be apex predators without flight. Evolution (if it can even be applied to dragons) would favor the loss of flight entirely.
The second option is even more troubling to me. As not only does the animals internal storage have to be massively strong ( consuming calories all the while) to compress and store the gas. But in the moment of expansion it's going to experience dramatic temperature loss. I'm not a smart enough person to say this with any confidence. But maybe enough to cause real freezing damage to it's internal structure.
All that out of the way. Dickinsons book depicts a world where magic very much does (or did) exist. It's implied by the story that dragons hail from a time where such forces were common place and don't fit in a world where they are not. So his explanations regarding dragon flight are fun in and of themselves. They're prolly not useful in fully describing the phenomenon in it's entirety.
Fantastic video Simon. A real tour de force of the animation and story telling that you've developed over the years, combined with an excellent initial idea of a topic. A well-deserved thumbs-up
Y'know, something that stuck out when talking about dragons' flight and the necessity for additional thrust/strength for takeoff was their tails. You didn't cover it in the video, but with the lightweight skeletons and musculature needed for a dragon to be viable at all, a large tail seems like it could make a significant contribution to thrust, lift, and control authority. Heck, the Chrysopelea do a pretty decent job of flight with nothing else.
The tail would add about 200 kg of added weight to the dragon going off the absolute insane length of most dragon's tails in fantasy. It'd be absolutely pointless and cause them to be unable to fly if anything. The largest known creature to have ever been able to fly, the Quetzalcoatlus Northropi, had practically no tail whatsoever when compared to dragon's as often depicted.
the production quality of this video is incredible - the fact that it only has 19k views is beyond me.
Tbh, me too
I was thinking about Pterodactyls throughout this whole video. Do you think there is enough data on Pterodactyls to go further with this concept? It would probably be hard to get any data on the composition of the wing or the biological material its made up of, if it even lasted through the millions of years.
They shared all the evolutionary adaptions that birds employ for flight including pneumatic skeleton and respiratory system, employed a bat style hand wing and the largest discovered so far was Quetzalcoatlus who was about the size of an f16 with a wingspan of about 11 to 13 m they stood about as tall as a giraffe but only weighed a few hundred kg. Computer models of their physiology suggest they could launch into flight from a standstill, fly at 130kph at heights up to 15000 feet, and stay aloft for up to a week with a range of over 13000 km. I can't believe he made this video without referencing the Pterosaurs..... By the way, any of the silly arguments that they couldn't fly are just dumb, nature doesn't encumber a creature with a 13m wingspan to have it waddle around on the ground, they would have gone extinct before they ever evolved. Anyway, a plane-sized airborne predator that could literally bite us in half sounds a lot like a dragon to me.
@@1bucketman Lmao thank you for this reply 2 years later, that was a nice read. It sounds like a sight I'd marvel at all the while being terrified with the possibility of it swooping down to snatch me up for baby food.
😳 Ye gods! Hadn't caught up with the more recent discoveries on this one. 11-13m wingspan?? 😱 All the dino illustrations of my childhood only showed something about the size of a pelican - had no idea the largest discovered were now basically Cessna-sized!! Given their head shape, wing structure etc they'd certainly make good dinosaur analogues...?
One point to note on this is I believe there was a higher oxygen concentration in the atmosphere at the time
Could the dragons maybe take off on their own with a Quetzqcoatlus type launch? Where they use all four limbs to push off the ground.
if you scale with the square root of weight to a cougar, you get ~18m, and linearly you get 60M both would probably give enough height to take off enough to not hit obstacles if they can maintain horizontal flight.
I think you forgot Flying reptiles and bird hollow bone to the griffin weight but great vid
I think with Griffins and Hipogriffs, because their wings are on their backs and shoulders, maybe they would have extra muscles in the sides or back. But I'm not sure
You've come a long way Simone! This is your best production by all means, the structure, the content, the interpretation, the illustrations, the interviews, everything falls in the right place. Kudos!
Came here for Yogscast. Stayed for the other stuff because it's cool too.
I like that you featured Gerald Durell and his zoo. I used to love reading about his adventures as a kid like "My Family and Other Animals."
Such an amazing video! Was never really interested in birds or flight, but you made it really interesting. Great job on the video! Hope it gets the attention it deserves.
Thank you so much!
What a wonderful a day it is when I see Simon Clark had uploaded a video!! Missed you man!
I missed being here too! Back for good now though :)
Great video! one thing that came to mind while watching is that you`re assuming the world they live in has the same atmospheric density and gravity as earth does, which is not necessarily the case. But I guess finding research on bird/bat who live in higher/lower gravity and atmospheric density is a little more difficult or at least I would think so
Yeah, true :0 I remember a documentary where they put what hypothetical life would be like on other planets. And one of those beings were like whales but what they explained is that the density was much lower on that planet so they could stay in the air without any problem.
This edit feels soo professional Simon! Loved how you integrated the interview parts seamlessly and purposefully. Definitely up there with your best work, keep it up👊
As someone who once created a humanoid avian OC, with wings based off of that of a snowy owl, I'm constantly looking for ways to make to make his way of flight - or even existance - seem more realistic, I can't explain how helpful this was!
Thanks a lot for this insight, you've certainly given me some things to think about.
(Also, I'm Dave and I've had the balls since 2010, at least).
Such an interesting piece of content!
Really enjoyed watching every second of it. Fascinating to see science being applied to Griffs and other creatures...
All the screens with blue background and white foreground (text, images) looked very high quality!
Great job! Keep it up!
Two things to add, i thought the bat hand was interesting, but I would recommend comparing it to swimming. Specifically similar to anything with webbed feet. It was a little lightbulb moment for me so hope that helps lol.
Second thing is I remember seeing a "mocumentary" or something on dragons and mentioned something about the chemicals for breathing fire could also be used for flight. If they were gases lighter than air, that could offset some of the weight if only slightly. Probably negligible unless it could compress it anyways. I don't know how you could possibly calculate this considering its reaching so far, but its a cool way to look at it.
This is so good!!! Honestly this fascinated me the whole way through, fantastic editing and content A+++, I hope this blows up bc it's absolutely wonderful content Simon, love it
I know that educational videos don't get as many views as other videos but this is both the perfect amount of education and entertainment. Your channel is amazing Simon and I'm glad to see you doing such amazing things even during busy times such as resubmitting your thesis.
For someone who is petrified of heights, I was never really interested in birds or flying creatures. Well now I am well intrigued to go look out for more related stuff. Great video Simon! Cheers.
Well done on this one, Simon. I very much appreciate this kind of content.
This must have taken so much work! It’s certainly well worth the effort, fantastic video. I was so happy when I saw that you’d uploaded again 😊
Amazing video Simon! Great work!
Amazing video as per usual. As a fantasy fan and an aspiring physicist, this is right up my alley! Good stuff
Amazing video. Love your work!
Great Video Simon! Don't worry about this not doing so well in terms of views. I found the video really enjoyable! In time, I'm sure you will become one of the biggest science channels in the UK!
I love how much work has been put in the creation of this video!
My nerdy soul is pleased
Why this doesn't have more views? This was really cool! Great explanation and analysis!
Good video. One minor correction: beholders do not use magic to fly. Officially, they're full of lighter than air gas that allows them to float (even in ab anti-magic zone). Although they may have changed that in later editions or source books.
What a great video. Really liked this one! As I did all of your previous videos :)
One of my favourite videos of yours yet :)
I flinched when you drew a straight line through what looks like a logarithmic graph 😅😅
This video is so fantastic. I'm speechless. Thank you, Simon.
Awesome video, great production I really, really enjoyed this one
Now I kind of want Ines from @drawcuriosity to be like "Well, actually, fairies kind of have wings like flies, and there are some people *khm*, who study the flight of flies..."
I wasn't interested in this topic but was glad to find myself watching the whole thing. Really nice video m8
Really nice quality, worth the wait for sure!
The brilliance of fantasy comes from implementing and following fantastical physics laws not just putting mumbo jumbo and change them whenever it suits the plot which is what happens most of the time.
Wow this was like a proper documentary, great stuff simon
What if the 6 limbed flying creatures have a mutated double sternum with two sets of pectorals or what if the griffin's bone structure is more similar to a bird than a horse so it weighs way less?
Great video, Simon!
The best fantasy worlds are those that have their own physics: unrealistic, but internally consistent.
Such a great video!! Congrats!!👍👍
Amazing video man :D "I have some expertise in the fields with the masters degree and PHD" -Dr SimonClark , gets me every time xD
Amazing video, I'm blown away by the production value. Though I fear that the youtube algorithm does'nt think much of your month long break, which is a shame
Great Video 😀 Really like those videos. I hope you come back to steady uploads👍
I enjoyed this SO much!
Brilliant video Simon
A very interesting video and some good science used. That said, I feel I need to point out something. Your weight judgments for the dragons do not seem to include the use of flight bladders. The concept is similar to the swim bladders of fish. They are sacs in the creatures body that store lighter than air gasses such as methane or hydrogen, typically produced by the creature's digestive system. These sacs would be the fuel for the creatures fire breath (combined with a spark creator in the back of the creature's throat) when the gasses are not needed for flight. This could solve or at least lessen the problems from the massive size by reducing that weight to a more manageable level.
One thing is to use mollors to bring rock kind of like a flint and steel
An interesting theory I've heard is that a dragon could have pockets inside its body that gather some light-wieght gas such as hydrogen or helium, which would effectively reduce their weight and allow for easier flight. The same gas would allow them to breathe fire.
Thanks for making science so cool! :)
The way that I've been looking at this is super magic heavy so it's really interesting to see this more grounded approach AND a cool biology lesson. I'm literally watching this at 1 am and it's making me nerd out hard. My dragons can't even fly without flight magic, their wings are mainly for show and heat dispersion since they're mammals, descended from saber tooth cats. But my Wyverns are a bit less magical. They did evolve in a very magically rich environment which provided them a lot of energy. That went towards extra limbs like every other creature on the planet, they're hexapods, with two sets of wings and one set of grasping talons. There's a lot of magical handwaving with how their muscles can even begin to provide mobile bat like flight for a 900 pound reptile but I have them use their fire breath to help with that. They mainly dive bomb to hunt and just before they hit their prey they spread their wings like parachutes. Instead of flapping to lift off, they just blast everything below them with fire and catch the updraft like a hot air balloon. If they're flying a sustained distance they'll lock their wings and occasionally use their fire to provide sudden gusts of lift. It's the best solution I could come up with to have them feel special and have a really unique and scary look. I even got to keep the horns to provide some head protection in the VERY likely event of a head on collision with something. They crash a lot. But that's pretty much all I've got for them. I'm gonna have to do a lot more research to make them even more scary and push magical creatures to their limit. (Oh and I forgot their fire breath isn't a breath, it's a flammable liquid that they can control the viscosity of and distribution of gas to liquid to make either flame blasts or spew flaming oil.)
Don't forget, magical creatures are magical, and also physics doesn't always apply to everything, as we have seen time and time again there are some things on earth and space "our laws of physics can't control"
I found some artists making entire graphs and correcting proportions so that fantastic animals could fly.
I remember that many explain that putting the wing from the shoulder, as many usually draw, would actually prevent the creature from flighing because both bones and muscles would get in the way of each other, but I did not know that there would be no other muscle to connect the wings to.
Just now found this video after seeing you pop up in Yogscast videos more and more.
Why was there no comparison to Pterosaurs in this? Would have gotten even more hypothetical of course, but would have been very interesting^^
I feel like this video should have mentioned pterodactyls, but great video otherwise!
Pterosaurs*
Very high quality content!!!
You ought to do more of these sort of videos.
Awesome video!!
First video I click on coming from the Hat Films video, aaaaaand straight back to Yogscast. I love it.
This video has the best like to dislike ratio I've seen in CZcams. Subscribed and activated the bell, thank you very much.
How do flying dinosaur wings work compared to birds and bats? My gut feeling is that flying dinosaurs look similar to dragons and are larger than megabats, but to be honest, I don't actually know anything about dinosaur biology. Did they fly more like birds? How big did they get?
Excellent video Simon, thanks!
I had the same thought about pterosaurs while watching the video, though their wing structure might be more bird-like, given the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds.
You mean birds?
Vampyricon I think the size differences between birds and pterosaurs make them worth looking into separately.
Yeah, like, it would make sense if they flew like birds given the evolutionary link, but I honestly don't know exactly how different their wing structure was or how big the largest ones were.
@@ProfTeak The latgest one (Quetzalcoatlus) had wingspans of up to 12 meters but it is estimated to have weighed 200-250 kg so much lower than traditional dragons or wyverns.
"he works with birds"
Me: birds going to office is PRETTY cool
This was excellent!
I've always been obsessed with Draconic anatomy, winged human anotomy, etc. Everytime I drew a mythical beast, I'd draw their bones first. I had a period a few years ago where I was certain I was going to play a centaur in my D&D campaign, and spent days researching centaur anatomy from the digestive system, to the cardiovascular system, to birth. 😵💫 Needless to say, im so happy to see this video.
Hang about mate, dragonflies have four wings plus six legs, so saying that a creature can't have two wings plus four legs involves making unjustified assumptions, or, as we say in the trade, bollocks. Unicorns have four legs and two wings and they do fly. Wanna disprove that by way of theory? Well, start by proving that a dragonfly can't fly. Maybe the painter didn't have enough room on the canvas to show the wings in true proportion. Maybe unicorns are quite small. Do you know? The one in my garden is about 20cm. The nurse has arrived with my medication, so I must be brief, there is no law of physics, aerodynamics, biology or evolution that backs up your assertion.
This is a rollercoaster of a comment...and I love it!!
I will point out, dragonflies and other insects have different musculature thanks to their not having a back bone. The missing vertebrae make for a lot more room for muscles on the back, as well and a nearly negligent weight.
Insect biomechanics are far different than mammal or reptile mechanics. Also insects are, at least today, super tiny and weigh next to nothing and despite some ancient insects being like a meter or more in size and having essentially six limbs or more, like I said, their biomechanics are different. If you think you know more than people who've studied it for years that's been peer reviewed and accepted as more than likely a biological impossibility, then I don't know what to tell you. Could it be possible somewhere in the universe? Probably. Is it possible based on known biology and our current understanding of physics here on earth? No.
I now think I should have added the word "joke" in capital letters, just in case.
Obviously the entire part after the word "bollocks" was a joke. The first part didn't seem like it was necessarily a joke.
We missed you man. Great video
No way ! I got so excited when you talked about Durrell as I go to jersey every year.
It's my family's summer holiday spot too! That's how I learned about Durrell. Quite possibly my favourite place on Earth
Simon Clark couldn’t agree more it’s such a wonderful place.
Brilliant video 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Nice vid, good work :)
This is so well edited! :D It's a shame Turps' audio is so echo-y. But this was really fun!
That was entirely my fault - he had a lav mic on, but my recorder was recording a different track. D'oh!
So some reason “sparky hooves” makes me giddy with joy.
nice work.!
This is so interesting!!!
The cockatiel in the wind tunnel was so cute.
I like seeing real world physics in fantasy. Gives me a flicker of hope that scientific advances could make it possible (not that I necessarily want dragons flying around, though)
THIS WAS AWESOME
Is there a place that you can plug in weights to figure out how fast, and how big would your wings need to be in order to fly? Trying to find if things weighting 600 or 2000 pounds would even be able to fly? Trying to figure out the equations and I end up with numbers that seem really unreasonable.
the content we need
Balerion the Black Dread was one dragon who couldn't take off right away bcuz he was so big. Taking off was a pain for him but when he did take off and got airborne he was like a fortress. Landing was another problem for Balerion and the largest sister mate Vhagar. Dragons in GOT don't stop growing and Balerion is an example on how big they can get and in lore he was very old and had many riders before his death
Different atmospheric composition and conditions could help with flight too!
I find it funny that Pterosaurs were completely neglected in this video
Pterosaurs, especially the azdarchids reached astonishing sizes and could still fly.
Finally a VIDEO!!!!!!
You're back !!!!!
Cool video !
One type of Dragon I find interesting is the Chinese Serpent-like Dragon. I wonder, would it be possible for such a creature to exist? Trey the Explainer has a video where he compares it to the South Asian Flying Serpent, but I don’t know if at some point size would be an issue.
0:08 thought you said "hypocrites from harry potter"
Everyone forgets the paradox that is the bumblebee.
how is gamora?