#analogous structures

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

In order for a dragon to have four legs AND a pair of wings, and in order for characters like Goro from Mortal Kombat or Four Arms from Ben 10 to have two legs and four arms, they would all need to have a third girdle.

Okay, so what the hell is a girdle?

A girdle is the part of the skeleton where the limbs attach to the torso.  Vertebrates generally have two; the pelvic girdle (hips) and the pectoral girdle (collar bones and shoulder blades).  The reason for this is because vertebrates evolved from creatures that had two set of limbs, the early lobe finned fish.

Over the eons, these fins adapted into analogous structures to fill different niches.  So, there can’t be any six-limbed vertebrates because there’s nowhere for the limbs to attach.  There would need to be a third girdle in between the first two to make room for a third pair of limbs, be they extra arms or wings, or whatever.

It is relatively easy to take an existing body part and adapt it into something else; legs are analogous to wings are analogous to fins.  You can tell what all the bones used to be, and that they’ve simply changed orientation and shape on an evolutionary timescale.

But it is very, very, very difficult to just create a new body part out of nothing.  It would be impossible to evolve an extra pair of legs or arms or wings because there is no analogous structure to make it out of.  You can lose a body part, like whales lost their hindlegs or how snakes lost all four, but you can’t gain new ones apropos of nothing.

Real dragons would be more like pterosaurs, with two legs and a pair of wings (in mythology, creatures like this are called wyverns).

[alithographica]

Science Fact Friday: Homology

I’ve also found this a helpful art tool. Whenever you forget which way a particular joint bends you can just reference your own!

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[steven-morris]

Analogous Structures (Original Composition) by Steven Morris (モリス・スティーブン) feat. Soundole (Peter Anthony Smith) on EWI

For the full effect, listen with headphones or high quality speakers.

Thank you for watching!

Soundole on Social Media! ♫YouTube (Soundole VGM Covers): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi4hnwHh4xqpyDV5098nmCQ ♫YouTube (Soundole Music): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4xowC6LFSbV88YUL3N4G4g ♫Twitter: @Soundole ♫Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soundole/

Steven Morris on Social Media! ♫FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/stevenmorrismusicandsound ♫TWITTER:  @beigeonbeige ♫INSTAGRAM: steven_morris_music ♫SOUNDCLOUD:https://soundcloud.com/steven_morris_music ♫GOOGLE+:https://plus.google.com/u/0/+StevenMorrisMusicAndSound/

Instruments: -Akai EWI (Electric Wind Instrument) 4000s (Patch 21) [Played by Soundole AKA Peter Anthony Smith] -Eurorack Modular Synthesizer -DSI MoPho (Dave Smith Instruments) -Korg MS2000B -DSI Tempest

Eurorack Patches of Interest: 1. 3x Strings (Bowed; 10+ tracks per part) 2. 2x French Horn (FM via Intellijel Dixie II's; modulator tuned a 5th below carrier. Modulator also has a modulator for the attack portion of the sound) 3. Oboe (FM via Intellijel Dixie II's; also run through a band pass filter with keyboard tracking) 4. 2x Choir (31 tracks per part) 5. "Noise Sequence" (Pittsburgh Modular Sequencer  modulating filtered noise 6. Modular Water Droplets 7. Modular Sparkle (High frequency S&H Sounds filtered through an HPF, also modulated with S&H, triggered with an LFO) 8. Tremolo Noise Sweep 9. Sample & Hold 10. Modular Rain (30 tracks; amalgamation of various filtered pulses generated with Doepfer Clock Divider, 4ms Shuffling Clock Multiplier, Make Noise Maths at nearly random intervals) 11. Tomita's Whistle (The famous patch that routes noise through a self oscillating filter, the cutoff frequency of which is controlled by keyboard tracking) 12. Tone-Deaf Ring Mod (AM patch; the frequency of amplitude-modulating and the modulated oscillators are determined by a Doepfer Sample & Hold module triggered by keyboard gate, but not pitch [not pictured!]) 13. BBD Clock Noise (output run through a filter; speed of clock and filter both hand modulated [not pictured])

Note on Modular Patches: Pitched patches were controlled with DSI MoPho Keyboard. Vibrato was setup within the patches and controlled by hand. Deopfer 2048-stage BBD was used extensively in conjunction with Intellijel uVCF and Deopfer 24db VCF3. Usually the Intellijel uVCF was used in parallel with the VCF3 + BBD combo. The BBD in particular is used to create the size of the instrument and its resonance.

Korg MS2000B Patches of Interest: 1. Ice Field (Preset) 2. Ana Strings (Preset)

Note on Korg MS2000B Patches: I don't mind using a preset when it is as fantastic as "Ice Field". Ana Strings is a bread and butter sound, but it plays well with my effects units, which IMO is another sign of a good patch.

DSI MoPho Patches of Interest: 1. So Square (Original Bass Patch) 2. Talking Synth (Original humorous vocal patch)

DSI Tempest Patches of Interest: 1. Tempest Chimes (Original Patch) 2. Noise Percussion (Using "Roll" Feature)

Other Patches: There is one sample used in this song, which is a sample that I created that combines various harmonics created with my voice and basic filtered synthesizer waves. This sample is played with my MoPho Keyboard and appears during the final part of the music.

Rack Effects: Ibanez AD202 Analog Delay (Used for saturation and Chorus) Vesta Kozo DIG-410 Digital Delay (Used for Chorus) Vesta Kozo RV-3 Spring Reverb (Used for reverb and distortion) Lexicon MX400 Digital Reverb

[miraclepantskatrevolution]

5. analogous structures

Similar structures that have evolved separately in multiple organisms.

This is Lucario.

Lucario is a Fighting/Steel type Pokémon that evolves from Riolu.

This one was at Anime Expo 20120 on Day Zero.

That must have been sweltering!

Lucario has many biological structures analogous to ones in human beings. Its bipedal body structure, for example, is necessarily supported by a very similar skeleton, and its brain is similar enough to a human's for it to speak human languages.

Although this Lucario is just a person in a suit, it still provides an opportunity to discuss biological concepts.

Cosplay!