Could a dragon use its wings to swim? The Next CEO of Stack OverflowDragon evolving from humanoid: Ice dragonWingless Dragons?Dragon taxonomyCan a dragon be electrocuted?Could this Very Specific Dragon Fly?Can a dragon who can heat parts of its body at will use that to fly?Alternate uses for dragon wings?Anti-Dragon armor, shields and melee weaponsHow would winged humans fight dragons?Is this humanoid dragon realistic the way I’ve imagined it?
IC has pull-down resistors on SMBus lines?
What day is it again?
Physiological effects of huge anime eyes
Is there such a thing as a proper verb, like a proper noun?
Is it professional to write unrelated content in an almost-empty email?
How do I fit a non linear curve?
What connection does MS Office have to Netscape Navigator?
Is there a difference between "Fahrstuhl" and "Aufzug"?
Why don't programming languages automatically manage the synchronous/asynchronous problem?
Expectation in a stochastic differential equation
Could a dragon use its wings to swim?
How to find image of a complex function with given constraints?
What is the difference between "hamstring tendon" and "common hamstring tendon"?
Man transported from Alternate World into ours by a Neutrino Detector
Audio Conversion With ADS1243
What is the process for cleansing a very negative action
Lucky Feat: How can "more than one creature spend a luck point to influence the outcome of a roll"?
What steps are necessary to read a Modern SSD in Medieval Europe?
Is there a way to save my career from absolute disaster?
what's the use of '% to gdp' type of variables?
Can I calculate next year's exemptions based on this year's refund/amount owed?
What was Carter Burke's job for "the company" in Aliens?
Touchpad not working on Debian 9
Computationally populating tables with probability data
Could a dragon use its wings to swim?
The Next CEO of Stack OverflowDragon evolving from humanoid: Ice dragonWingless Dragons?Dragon taxonomyCan a dragon be electrocuted?Could this Very Specific Dragon Fly?Can a dragon who can heat parts of its body at will use that to fly?Alternate uses for dragon wings?Anti-Dragon armor, shields and melee weaponsHow would winged humans fight dragons?Is this humanoid dragon realistic the way I’ve imagined it?
$begingroup$
I have three types of dragons; dragons that primarily fly, dragons that primarily run, and dragons that primarily swim, with all three types being able to do the other two things for a limited amount of time.
What kind of wings would a water dragon have to have to be able to fly as well as swim? I had envisioned them using their wings as flippers, but I don't know if that would work for flying too.
biology mythical-creatures dragons
asked 4 hours ago
NadiraSpzirglasNadiraSpzirglas
212
New contributor
NadiraSpzirglas is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
I have three types of dragons; dragons that primarily fly, dragons that primarily run, and dragons that primarily swim, with all three types being able to do the other two things for a limited amount of time.
What kind of wings would a water dragon have to have to be able to fly as well as swim? I had envisioned them using their wings as flippers, but I don't know if that would work for flying too.
biology mythical-creatures dragons
asked 4 hours ago
NadiraSpzirglasNadiraSpzirglas
212
New contributor
NadiraSpzirglas is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
I don't know much about the physics or biology of this kind of thing, but it seems to me the needed motion for swimming vs flying is different? You push "down" against the air when flying, as opposed to pushing "back" against the water when swimming? So, anyone please correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like the range of motion is different for these two things and your dragons would need pretty versatile joints? I'm also now pretty interested in this question, looking forward to seeing what the science-literate folks on here say. P.S. Welcome to Stack Exchange
$endgroup$
– MarielS
4 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
I have three types of dragons; dragons that primarily fly, dragons that primarily run, and dragons that primarily swim, with all three types being able to do the other two things for a limited amount of time.
What kind of wings would a water dragon have to have to be able to fly as well as swim? I had envisioned them using their wings as flippers, but I don't know if that would work for flying too.
biology mythical-creatures dragons
asked 4 hours ago
NadiraSpzirglasNadiraSpzirglas
212
New contributor
NadiraSpzirglas is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
$endgroup$
I have three types of dragons; dragons that primarily fly, dragons that primarily run, and dragons that primarily swim, with all three types being able to do the other two things for a limited amount of time.
What kind of wings would a water dragon have to have to be able to fly as well as swim? I had envisioned them using their wings as flippers, but I don't know if that would work for flying too.
biology mythical-creatures dragons
biology mythical-creatures dragons
asked 4 hours ago
NadiraSpzirglasNadiraSpzirglas
212
New contributor
NadiraSpzirglas is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
asked 4 hours ago
NadiraSpzirglasNadiraSpzirglas
212
New contributor
NadiraSpzirglas is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
asked 4 hours ago
NadiraSpzirglasNadiraSpzirglas
212
New contributor
NadiraSpzirglas is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
asked 4 hours ago
NadiraSpzirglasNadiraSpzirglas
212
asked 4 hours ago
NadiraSpzirglasNadiraSpzirglas
212
212
New contributor
NadiraSpzirglas is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
New contributor
NadiraSpzirglas is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
NadiraSpzirglas is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
$begingroup$
I don't know much about the physics or biology of this kind of thing, but it seems to me the needed motion for swimming vs flying is different? You push "down" against the air when flying, as opposed to pushing "back" against the water when swimming? So, anyone please correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like the range of motion is different for these two things and your dragons would need pretty versatile joints? I'm also now pretty interested in this question, looking forward to seeing what the science-literate folks on here say. P.S. Welcome to Stack Exchange
$endgroup$
– MarielS
4 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
I don't know much about the physics or biology of this kind of thing, but it seems to me the needed motion for swimming vs flying is different? You push "down" against the air when flying, as opposed to pushing "back" against the water when swimming? So, anyone please correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like the range of motion is different for these two things and your dragons would need pretty versatile joints? I'm also now pretty interested in this question, looking forward to seeing what the science-literate folks on here say. P.S. Welcome to Stack Exchange
$endgroup$
– MarielS
4 hours ago
$begingroup$
I don't know much about the physics or biology of this kind of thing, but it seems to me the needed motion for swimming vs flying is different? You push "down" against the air when flying, as opposed to pushing "back" against the water when swimming? So, anyone please correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like the range of motion is different for these two things and your dragons would need pretty versatile joints? I'm also now pretty interested in this question, looking forward to seeing what the science-literate folks on here say. P.S. Welcome to Stack Exchange
$endgroup$
– MarielS
4 hours ago
$begingroup$
I don't know much about the physics or biology of this kind of thing, but it seems to me the needed motion for swimming vs flying is different? You push "down" against the air when flying, as opposed to pushing "back" against the water when swimming? So, anyone please correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like the range of motion is different for these two things and your dragons would need pretty versatile joints? I'm also now pretty interested in this question, looking forward to seeing what the science-literate folks on here say. P.S. Welcome to Stack Exchange
$endgroup$
– MarielS
4 hours ago
add a comment |
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
$begingroup$
Totally yes.
If these ducks can do it, your dragons can do it. The video is great - these ducks are flying down to the ocean floor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7wY4Cnuk-s
It occurs to me that it would be good for something like a dragon to be able to use only part of its wing at first. I worry the forces put over the entirety of the wing to move that much water could tear the wing. As the dragon got up to speed it could use more and more wing.
answered 4 hours ago
WillkWillk
115k27218484
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
There are certainly real-life birds that can fly in air and primarily hunt underwater... gannets and puffins, for example. There's plenty of footage on youtube of them doing just this. There are other flying birds that can fold their wings back neatly and use their feet for propulsion underwater, such as cormorants or diving ducks, so both options could work for you (though dragons with huge webbed feet might not be quite so intrinsically bad-ass as ones with talons. ymmv)
I strongly suspect that there will be scaling issues... for the same reason that large flying dragons are awkward things to make plausible (see countless questions on this site passim ad nauseam) making very large flippers remain light and strong and fast enough for flight and remain tough and powerful enough for swimming is likely to be very difficult. If you've already handwaved dragons into your scenario, perhaps this is less of an issue for you.
answered 4 hours ago
Starfish PrimeStarfish Prime
1717
$endgroup$
add a comment |
StackExchange.ifUsing("editor", function ()
return StackExchange.using("mathjaxEditing", function ()
StackExchange.MarkdownEditor.creationCallbacks.add(function (editor, postfix)
StackExchange.mathjaxEditing.prepareWmdForMathJax(editor, postfix, [["$", "$"], ["\\(","\\)"]]);
);
);
, "mathjax-editing");
StackExchange.ready(function()
var channelOptions =
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "579"
;
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);
StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function()
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled)
StackExchange.using("snippets", function()
createEditor();
);
else
createEditor();
);
function createEditor()
StackExchange.prepareEditor(
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: false,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: null,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader:
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
,
noCode: true, onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
);
);
NadiraSpzirglas is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function ()
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fworldbuilding.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f142896%2fcould-a-dragon-use-its-wings-to-swim%23new-answer', 'question_page');
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
$begingroup$
Totally yes.
If these ducks can do it, your dragons can do it. The video is great - these ducks are flying down to the ocean floor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7wY4Cnuk-s
It occurs to me that it would be good for something like a dragon to be able to use only part of its wing at first. I worry the forces put over the entirety of the wing to move that much water could tear the wing. As the dragon got up to speed it could use more and more wing.
answered 4 hours ago
WillkWillk
115k27218484
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Totally yes.
If these ducks can do it, your dragons can do it. The video is great - these ducks are flying down to the ocean floor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7wY4Cnuk-s
It occurs to me that it would be good for something like a dragon to be able to use only part of its wing at first. I worry the forces put over the entirety of the wing to move that much water could tear the wing. As the dragon got up to speed it could use more and more wing.
answered 4 hours ago
WillkWillk
115k27218484
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Totally yes.
If these ducks can do it, your dragons can do it. The video is great - these ducks are flying down to the ocean floor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7wY4Cnuk-s
It occurs to me that it would be good for something like a dragon to be able to use only part of its wing at first. I worry the forces put over the entirety of the wing to move that much water could tear the wing. As the dragon got up to speed it could use more and more wing.
answered 4 hours ago
WillkWillk
115k27218484
$endgroup$
Totally yes.
If these ducks can do it, your dragons can do it. The video is great - these ducks are flying down to the ocean floor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7wY4Cnuk-s
It occurs to me that it would be good for something like a dragon to be able to use only part of its wing at first. I worry the forces put over the entirety of the wing to move that much water could tear the wing. As the dragon got up to speed it could use more and more wing.
answered 4 hours ago
WillkWillk
115k27218484
answered 4 hours ago
WillkWillk
115k27218484
answered 4 hours ago
WillkWillk
115k27218484
answered 4 hours ago
WillkWillk
115k27218484
115k27218484
add a comment |
add a comment |
$begingroup$
There are certainly real-life birds that can fly in air and primarily hunt underwater... gannets and puffins, for example. There's plenty of footage on youtube of them doing just this. There are other flying birds that can fold their wings back neatly and use their feet for propulsion underwater, such as cormorants or diving ducks, so both options could work for you (though dragons with huge webbed feet might not be quite so intrinsically bad-ass as ones with talons. ymmv)
I strongly suspect that there will be scaling issues... for the same reason that large flying dragons are awkward things to make plausible (see countless questions on this site passim ad nauseam) making very large flippers remain light and strong and fast enough for flight and remain tough and powerful enough for swimming is likely to be very difficult. If you've already handwaved dragons into your scenario, perhaps this is less of an issue for you.
answered 4 hours ago
Starfish PrimeStarfish Prime
1717
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
There are certainly real-life birds that can fly in air and primarily hunt underwater... gannets and puffins, for example. There's plenty of footage on youtube of them doing just this. There are other flying birds that can fold their wings back neatly and use their feet for propulsion underwater, such as cormorants or diving ducks, so both options could work for you (though dragons with huge webbed feet might not be quite so intrinsically bad-ass as ones with talons. ymmv)
I strongly suspect that there will be scaling issues... for the same reason that large flying dragons are awkward things to make plausible (see countless questions on this site passim ad nauseam) making very large flippers remain light and strong and fast enough for flight and remain tough and powerful enough for swimming is likely to be very difficult. If you've already handwaved dragons into your scenario, perhaps this is less of an issue for you.
answered 4 hours ago
Starfish PrimeStarfish Prime
1717
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
There are certainly real-life birds that can fly in air and primarily hunt underwater... gannets and puffins, for example. There's plenty of footage on youtube of them doing just this. There are other flying birds that can fold their wings back neatly and use their feet for propulsion underwater, such as cormorants or diving ducks, so both options could work for you (though dragons with huge webbed feet might not be quite so intrinsically bad-ass as ones with talons. ymmv)
I strongly suspect that there will be scaling issues... for the same reason that large flying dragons are awkward things to make plausible (see countless questions on this site passim ad nauseam) making very large flippers remain light and strong and fast enough for flight and remain tough and powerful enough for swimming is likely to be very difficult. If you've already handwaved dragons into your scenario, perhaps this is less of an issue for you.
answered 4 hours ago
Starfish PrimeStarfish Prime
1717
$endgroup$
There are certainly real-life birds that can fly in air and primarily hunt underwater... gannets and puffins, for example. There's plenty of footage on youtube of them doing just this. There are other flying birds that can fold their wings back neatly and use their feet for propulsion underwater, such as cormorants or diving ducks, so both options could work for you (though dragons with huge webbed feet might not be quite so intrinsically bad-ass as ones with talons. ymmv)
I strongly suspect that there will be scaling issues... for the same reason that large flying dragons are awkward things to make plausible (see countless questions on this site passim ad nauseam) making very large flippers remain light and strong and fast enough for flight and remain tough and powerful enough for swimming is likely to be very difficult. If you've already handwaved dragons into your scenario, perhaps this is less of an issue for you.
answered 4 hours ago
Starfish PrimeStarfish Prime
1717
answered 4 hours ago
Starfish PrimeStarfish Prime
1717
answered 4 hours ago
Starfish PrimeStarfish Prime
1717
answered 4 hours ago
Starfish PrimeStarfish Prime
1717
1717
add a comment |
add a comment |
NadiraSpzirglas is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
NadiraSpzirglas is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
NadiraSpzirglas is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
NadiraSpzirglas is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
Thanks for contributing an answer to Worldbuilding Stack Exchange!
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
Use MathJax to format equations. MathJax reference.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function ()
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2fworldbuilding.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f142896%2fcould-a-dragon-use-its-wings-to-swim%23new-answer', 'question_page');
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
$begingroup$
I don't know much about the physics or biology of this kind of thing, but it seems to me the needed motion for swimming vs flying is different? You push "down" against the air when flying, as opposed to pushing "back" against the water when swimming? So, anyone please correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like the range of motion is different for these two things and your dragons would need pretty versatile joints? I'm also now pretty interested in this question, looking forward to seeing what the science-literate folks on here say. P.S. Welcome to Stack Exchange
$endgroup$
– MarielS
4 hours ago