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All I can say is that I felt some of the pressure off and decided to tackle some unfinished work.
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Deviousness `anmari has been spreading her infectious positivity throughout our community for over 6 years. Throughout this time Ana has been at the core of all things devious, passionately developing an eclectic gallery, helping organise devmeets, participating in chat events and also recently completed dedicating her time as a Community Volunteer. We are absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for May 2013 to `anmari, congratulations! Read More
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Sta.sh
What of it?
That's the "original" alula. My resoning behind it was seeing many Earth birds have small spike-like claws on their alular thumbs, it should be that from an evo-devo point of view there's some sense that claw formation wouldn't be inhibited on the alula of the ancestral alulonychid. Either that or the signaling that helped form the fingers also had its influence of the alula. Of course while the fingers have their feathery stubble the alula is fully feathered.
At least that's what I figured. But it's your call.
A quick thought: Would you consider placing additional control surfaces on those fingers? It would perhaps help at least the predatory birds fly at low speeds and maneuver in tight spots. I doubt it would conflict with any preening function the fingers may have.
And what would you suggest to facilitate the extra control surfaces? At the moment, I'm wondering whether to have erectile quills on one edge of the fingers form an extended edge/surface when the fingers are held out for flight, or to simply have the fingers tuck into the wing and have extra feathers near the base of the fingers extend out to serve as makeshift alula feathers? On the other hand, I doubt that the herbivorous alulonychids would have such features, as leaf-eating birds tend to be poor fliers to begin with, and would be the primary reason why the family is divided into two subfamilies.
Not original in the sense that it's homologous to the structure in the common alulonychid ancestor; the whole multiple thumb complex is homologous the way I figure it. I meant it in the functional sense.
I'm not in the proper mindset to scry hints. Is there any thing you would like changed?
I'll sketch my ideas down as soon as possible but I think the second hypothesis is what I had in mind.
I dunno, a poor flier and generally a slow one would benefit from having additional control surfaces to avoid stalling and dropping from the sky as it were.
Do you mean to say herbivory developed several independent times in alulonychids or that there is really a profound split between canivores and herbivores in this family. I mean, you never know when you talk Linnaean ranks...
The ancestral alulonychid was a pheasant or coucal-like ground dwelling omnivore: at the moment, I envision two primary subgroups which represent the two most successful subgroups, in that one group became foliavores, while another group became insectivores, and eventually graduated to vertebrates. Almost all of the other subgroups are now extinct, either having been outcompeted with their relatives (the hannahs and the hawk-hannahs), or with other bird groups, and the living minor subgroups have been, for the most part, relegated to "aberrant" status (many are flightless).
Yeah, what Stanton said though I wouldn't say the extra fingers are on the wrist of the wing