#flight anatomy

[crevicedwelling]

the paralyzed cicadas I picked up from a failed cicada killer nest are the perfect material to show off some cool features of insect anatomy! (although the wasp’s venom would keep them alive for her larvae to eat, I froze them to make sure they’re fully dead for dissection).

cicadas are powerful, fast fliers, and all of their thorax is taken up by a bulk of reddish, stringy flight muscles, which I’ll talk more about later. this cicada is a female, so her abdomen is full of white, elongated eggs that she will insert into tree bark with the bladed ovipositor at her rear.

the male cicada’s abdomen, however, is almost entirely empty, and that air-filled space is used as a resonator for his loud calls. the biggest structure visible there is a curved pair of muscles that deforms the tymbals, producing a click with every contraction.

here's a view of the complete muscle, and the tymbals themselves which look like overlapping plates on his belly. if you're curious what the white frosted appearance is, some Neotibicen have a coat of waxy powder or pruinescence; this male N. tibicen is particularly pruinose.

onto the flight muscles:

powered flight is a pretty complex mechanism in any organism, and is never so simple as just flapping wings up and down, but most insects power their flight in a really unintuitive way (at least for us vertebrates): they contract muscles in their thorax that aren’t even attached to the wings!

this method of flight is called indirect flight, in contrast to the direct flight of the dragonflies and mayflies where each of four wings is directly attached to a muscle and can flap on its own.

instead, most insects have a longitudinal (image 1 above, d below) pair and a vertical (2, c) pair of muscles that deform the shape of abdomen, pulling the upper segment of the thorax (notum) up and down, and this moves the wings which are attached to the notum. useful indirect flight gif from wikipedia found here

even if compressed manually, the dead cicadas "flap" their wings due to the motion of the notum:

insect flight is a lot more complicated than this simplified look at them, but I think these cicadas offer a pretty good look at how most insects get around essentially by squishing themselves internally!

[rhvpsodos-fr]

anotha one!

(DTDAY for lostplanetvoltia#178385)

[our-wishes-and-whispers]

Niles

[brainrotisseriechicken]

..

extra:

(it was a spring morning)

(he was a frail boy with no friends)

(he ran into you from across the wall)

(you said hello to him, and asked him to play along)

(at that very moment, he received his lifelong—)

extra 2: oscar boogaloo

yeahhhh....iykyk

[shepherdofthecorn]

Frisk and Phil, Wanted for attempted counterfeiting

[electric-blue24]

trying to figure out how this dragon jet robot thing will work so its time for some good ol' ballpoint pen sketch studies

[sleepysnakes]

As a reptile enthusiast I have to ask all artists intending on drawing the auraboas to take a second to look at snake mouth anatomy

Namely, that the tongue does not come from that little hole on the bottom (the glottis). That tube is there to let the snake still breathe while ingesting prey. They can't breathe if a tongue is in there.

I know this is sooo petty but it ruins so many snake drawings for me when people put the tongue coming out of that 😅

[desnik-fr]

Draw bogsneaks like this

[img id] Digital artwork of a Bogsneak dragon, which looks like a monitor lizard standing upright. It is drawn with thin black lineart. A bogsneak has a long neck, a long tail, relatively stubby lizard limbs, and a short wingspan. Twin frills line its neck. This dragon is mostly tan along the body, with reddish brown wings and mineralized dark brown splotches on all the wing and fin membranes. It sports exotic turquoise marks, including a 'mask' around the eyes and contour lines down its belly and across its limbs. Its tail is vibrantly stripy with deep brown and turquoise stripes.

If someone hates this dragon's anatomy or tells me I've "ruined" my own artwork, I will eat them [/id]

[leporidaisical]

Another go with the metallic effect!

I wanna do more of these but i've kinda run out of dragons of my own that it'd work for so uh. if you wanna drop a dragon or two in a reblog and maybe i'll draw them (i'm specifically looking for dragons with mostly one or two colour(s) plus one bright accent colour (and not too much apparel/apparel that can be simplified))

[pestilentbrood]

despite the warnings, you stare into the sun you're willingly blinded by its brilliance beauty enraptures you so comfortingly you miss the blood dripping down your back

[demigod-of-the-agni]

runs back into bromantic flight. eyo does that mean Lloyd has a saddle (not actually a saddle, but something that connects to both him and Kai that is) that Kai can use to move Lloyd's arm in dragon form while traveling around on him?

I made a doodle just for you, dear anon

(lloyd is extra noodle-y now)

(also not tumblr eating the quality again god im so sorry)

Anyway what you're seeing here is that, yes, Kai has a saddle that he uses to connect the prosthetic to. The little glowing yellow things around Kai's leg? They're supposed to represent the straps that Kai fastens around his thigh to connect him to Lloyd's prosthetic (but i grew lazy and did not draw them in properly lmao)

Kai's thigh would be strapped to the radioulnar portion of the prosthetic, and the "stirrup" Kai's foot rests in is bolted into this sliding piston in the carpal portion of the prosthetic (which i also did not draw (forgot to) so you'll have to imagine it).

The main idea behind the self-regulating pistons is actually based on a real-life phenomenon called the perching reflex, which is found in birds! A series of "flexor tendons" are attached from the bird's femur and stretch all the way down to the back of the leg and the underside of the toes. When the bird extends its legs, the toes extend as well because the tendons relax; and when the the bird flexes its legs, the toes curl up because now the tendon is stretched around the bones and prevent free movement. This is actually how birds can sit in trees and sleep all night without falling.

(from Bird Vet Melbourne)

Similar thing is happening with the prosthetic, but instead of tendons it's pistons. When Kai flexes his leg, his thigh draws up the upper portion of the prosthetic and his flexing ankle (dorsiflexion) curls up the prosthetic's fingers, so to speak; and when Kai straightens his leg, his thigh pushes the upper portion downward, and his foot extension (plantarflexion) also extends the fingers.

I know this sounds like an absolute workout for Kai, and it is, and you may think by the time he comes back after numerous test flights everyone is very aware of his bulging quads, but it's not that obvious; it's like riding bicycle, if you think about. a really long bicycle. with one leg. while flying in the air. It's pretty much the same thing.

TLDR: there is a saddle that connects to the prosthetic. Kai sits on the saddle and uses his leg to adjust Lloyd’s prosthetic

[flygefisk]

actually more on-model than most of my fr art

[eternalchant]

idk what tha hell is goin on with these guys... tbh...

[cryptidcanid19]

according to all known laws of aviation, the kushala daora should not be able to fly. its wings are simply too small to pull its fat metal body off the ground. the kushala daora does not care, for it flies anyways.

[sheepalmighty]

The final sacrifice

This piece that remained incomplete for a few years but I decided to work on recently looks godawful but I thought I'd upload it anyway. I enjoyed getting lost painting little details here and there. I also have many thoughts and feelings about ACZ that I hope I've partly conveyed here.

Closeups just 'cos:

And I really liked how I drew Galm-Cipher in the original sketch I made so I'm including it here too (unfortunately small because I didn't keep the original sized one):

[legofemme]

Excuse the poor image quality but heres my quick dusthide fix. The front legs wouldnt be able to lie flat like they do in the official art. and why do they have digging claws on their hindlegs . Decided an anteater stance would make more sense considering thats what their front claws are based on anyway. Everything else is personal taste (except for the long tongue, which as a burrowing insectivore species they logically would have)