Three Strikes In opposition to Angels: 4 Limbs Good, Six Limbs – I Do not Assume So
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Angels seem to have six limbs: arms, legs and wings. No matter they’re, then, they’re most likely not vertebrates, I.e., animals like us with a spinal wire enclosed in a spine.
A superfluity of appendages
No residing or fossil vertebrate has greater than 4 limbs. Whales and snakes, amongst others, have deserted some or all exterior limbs, however no identified vertebrate has ever added any. Even fish, which have every kind of exterior constructions for locomotion and/or stabilization, are constructed round a primary 4-limb bauplan (physique plan) of paired pectoral (shoulder) and pelvic (hip) fins.
It might be that 4 is the final optimum variety of limbs-enough to get the job accomplished; not so many as to squander vitality within the creating fetus or in sensible use. Doubtless it’s a largely incidental consequence of getting developed from an ancestor constructed across the 4-limb construction, which, in most vertebrates immediately, seems as 4 legs. Some teams have modified forelimbs into both arms (primates) or wings (bats, birds), however no species has each… or they would not have a leg to face on.
As the photographs all present, nevertheless, angels seem to have completely competent arms in addition to feathered wings rising from their shoulder girdles. It is arduous to determine how a creature might have gotten there (angels) from right here (the vertebrate 4-limb physique plan).
These wings will not work
Evolution is basically a bricoleur, in throwing up new species it makes do with what’s already in its instrument equipment somewhat than designing from scratch. All of the principal current physique plans date again to the Cambrian Explosion of 530 mya (million years in the past). Arthropods produce essentially the most limbs, starting from roughly 14-limbed bugs (wager you thought they solely had six; a number of of their mouthparts are literally modified limbs) to many a whole lot, even approaching 1000 on a really previous millipede, however it’s not ‘arduous’ for them so as to add limbs. They do it by multiplying physique segments, every of which produces a pair of ‘limbs’: antennae, jaws, wings, legs.
Vertebrates aren’t segmented like arthropods, nevertheless, and in addition to, angel wings violate the vertebrate physique plan in a extra vital means than merely number-they apparently connect to the dorsal (again) aspect of the shoulder (pectoral) girdle. Test it out: all vertebrate arms, legs, wings, fins connect to the ventral (stomach) aspect of the pectoral and pelvic girdles. The place would highly effective flight muscle tissues connect: how would they be stabilized. A vertebrate flapping wings like an angel’s would torque its backbone into an unholy mess.
It is one or the opposite
And a 3rd factor! Depictions present angels with feathered wings however lengthy silky hair. No residing species kinds each hair and feathers. After all, Gabriel’s flowing locks may probably not be hair, however the sort of lengthy, delicate, largely unbarbed feathers known as filoplumes, thought to play sensory and/or ornamental roles in birds. Filoplumes could sense the place of contour (physique) feathers in order that they are often stored correctly aligned, they could play a task in offering physique consciousness in flight, they could make birds extra enticing to the alternative intercourse. If Raphael’s filoplumes have been certainly misconstrued for tresses, one wonders how angels make use of them.
After all, hair and feathers aren’t options that fossilize effectively, so it is attainable that someplace on the market, simply ready to be discovered (or maybe already discovered and mistaken for a feathered dinosaur?) is a furry, fluffy multi-limbed fossil of the vertebrate/angel final widespread ancestor. One might most likely higher spend ones time trying to find the Misplaced Ark of the Covenant. Oh, wait. That is in some dusty U.S. authorities warehouse, is not it? Or, was it a church in Ethiopia?
