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The term flightless bird seams derogatory to me. I've never heard of a spineless vertebrate or a hydrophobic fish, why do penguins need to be flightless.
The technology exists to create a lightweight, waterproof, lithium-polymer powered electric helicopter for use by penguins. The device would
be optional for their use. This isn't a proposal to strap the device to them. Penguin training would be necessary although.
The helicopter would be controlled with flipper input. The penguin would walk onto a platform attached to the bottom of the device. At anytime the creature would have the option to eject from the device and dive bomb when over water to catch prey. As for the electronics on board, there would be some additional automatic features. It would be able to fly automatically to recharge itself. In addition it would have a GPS beacon built in to track its movement. Once a fleet of helicopters has been built and penguins trained there could finally be a beautiful sight, flocks of airborne penguins!
These fish don't like water.
http://www.google.c...:429,r:19,s:0,i:141
[AusCan531, Dec 03 2012]
Prior art
http://www.telegrap...ns-take-flight.html
[MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 04 2012]
[link]
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Maybe gliders would work better for penguins. |
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In a manner of speaking, penguins actually do fly. They just do it through water instead of through air. An argument can be made that their method of locomotion in water may actually be superior to that of fish. |
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Remember that birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs; large birds have been around rather longer than large mammals. And when large mammals took up the aquatic lifestyle, they evolutionarily morphed to become rather fishy in body structure. |
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But birds like penguins that took up the aquatic lifestyle --and perhaps did so well before the mammals-- did NOT evolutionarily morph to become fish-like, using their tails as their primary means of locomotion. They still have wings, and they know how to use them! That almost certainly means that keeping their wings was advantageous.... |
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Name one ( and cite your sources). // |
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Peking Duck is a notoriously hydrophobic fish. |
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Name one ( and cite your sources). // |
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Peking Duck is a notoriously hydrophobic fish. |
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There is also a mudskipper-like fish in Borneo which lives on the
border between mangrove swamps and regular rainforest.
Unfortunately, it is osmotically adapted neither to salt nor to
fresh water, and can only tolerate a very narrow range of
intermediate salinity. |
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If it falls from the branches where it normally lives into seawater,
it quickly dies. Conversely, prolonged immersion in fresh water is
also fatal. Hence, it spends most of its life clinging to branches
and rocks and relying on the high ambient humidity. It mates and
lays its eggs in saltwater puddles which have been diluted by
monsoon rains, and many of these fish die by misjudging the
salinity or when seawater or excessive range change the salinity in
mid shag. |
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The eggs can survive a fairly wide salinity range, but the hatchlings
must escape the water (which, by now, no longer has the right
salinity) within a few seconds of hatching, or they also die. |
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By all reasonable standards, this fish is one of evolutions Friday
afternoon jobs. |
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I see the potential for a Madagascar short here. |
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"Rico, helicopter device. The Private and I are going
on a little mission..." |
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Wealth of knowledge max... Thanks. Want to read on it more after your anno. |
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that's a great link auscan |
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[Max...] cetacean needed... |
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Sp. spineless vertebrate. |
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Glad and worry? You sure overestimate the avian brain. |
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I don't see how this would improve the life of those who pay for it. |
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Just like Obamacare, then? |
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\\I don't see how this would improve the life of those who pay for it\\
Sight of flocks of flying penguins |
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Sea Lions. This makes me think of Sea Lions. And I
think they too should be able to fly. Got any thing for
them? (evilsealion?) |
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Unfortunately sea lions are too heavy. I postulate that current battery technology would allow for penguin flight because of the total power to weight ratio in play. The craft would require frequent recharging, but I believe it could achieve useful flight times. |
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Thanks for the link MB... Beautiful |
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By odd coincidence, there is a walrus in the
Cambridge natural history museum which was
dessicated experimentally (by freeze-drying, I
believe). |
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It is about the size of a beach-ball, and is not at
all walrus-shaped. It is very approximately a
truncated cone. The skin of the walrus is
sufficiently thick and tough that, when it
contracted during drying, it broke and crushed the
underlying skeleton. |
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So, if you happen to own a walrus and an unusually
large freeze drier, keep the two apart. |
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Not to detract from the original idea, but I have often thought that those who considered penguins to be "flightless" birds did not give enough credit to the penguins' fanciful imaginations. |
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I saw a chicken fly a goodly distance once -- it felt like a
glitch in the Matrix. |
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It would be my wild guess that penguins retain their
instinct
for flight. With that in mind, an ornithopter exoskeleton
might be more comfortable to control due to the more
natural user interface. |
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[+] for making me think of the matrix-chicken, and for
pimp-slapping natural selection. |
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//pimp-slapping natural selection//tagline material |
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