• Question: DO YOU BELIEVE THAT OUR SHOULDER BLADES WERE ONCED USED AS WINGS??????!!!!!!

    Asked by samuelharrison to Alex, Amy, Andy, Georgia, Ollie on 18 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Georgia Campbell

      Georgia Campbell answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      I’m pretty sure that there’s no evidence that humans have ever been able to fly … it would be awesome if we could though! 😛

      The ability to fly evolved a long time ago, but only in the groups of creatures that are still able to fly today – all mammals have shoulder blades, but they’ve never been used as wings.

    • Photo: Ollie Russell

      Ollie Russell answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      The only mammal that can fly are bats. Their wings are just fingers that have grown really long and skin has grown between them. If you could work out a way of growning your fingers then you could probably fly….. you might look a bit weird though as I think you would have to have fingers that are about 5ft long!

    • Photo: Andy MacLeod

      Andy MacLeod answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      No, I don’t

      Hi there samuel. As far as I know, there is no animal that’s the evolutionary ancestor of humans that had the ability to fly. However, some of our cousins do. All animals with backbones (of which we mammals are one class) have the same basic body plan, they’ve just gone in different directions. So birds have wings where we have arms, and fish have fins. But I can’t think of any animal where the equivalent of shoulder-blades have turned into wings.

      Do you know any?

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