All About Birds What is the chest muscle of flying birds called that gives them the ability to fly?

by qmnonic

Question by Anonymous: What is the chest muscle of flying birds called that gives them the ability to fly?
I know it is some specific word for birds. It is the muscle that connects their wings to their chest bones that gives the flying birds the ability to fly. Non-flying birds do not have this muscle. It’s not pectoral, it is a certain specific bird word and I can’t find it on the internet and I don’t remember what page it is on in my biology book.

Best answer:

Answer by Cal King
Birds can fly using the M pectoralis, or pectoral muscle, the same muscle that bats use to fly. However, birds have an additional muscle that allows them to take off into the air from a standing start on the ground. This additional muscle is called M. supracoracoideus, or supracoracoid muscle and it powers the upstroke when a bird flies. When scientists disabled the M. supracoracoideus in living birds such as pigeons and crows by severing the tendon that attaches the muscle to the bone, the birds can no longer take off from the ground, but they can still fly if thrown into the air.

The M. supracoracoideus is absent from bats and from pterosaurs. Therefore bats cannot take off from the ground, but must do so from a perch above the ground. This is one reason why bats hang upside down above the ground. They need to take off from that position, so that they can flap their wings as soon as they let go or even before they let go. The absence of the M. supracoracoideus is perhaps one reason many pterosaurs have been found fossilized in marine deposits. If they ever got blown into the water by, say, a gust of wind, they will not be able to take off again and will drown. There is debate as to whether Archaeopteryx, the oldest known fossil bird, had the M. supracoracoideus or not. If it does not, it can explain why it still needs the claws on its hands, since these claws will allow it to climb back up a tree from the ground, because it would not have been able to take off into the air directly from the ground.

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