I'm still thinking about centaurs!

[conuly]

Several people have mentioned that centaurs must eat a lot to support their huge horse body AND their not-too-tiny human body.

But not all horses are huge. What if centaurs aren't big? What if the horse half is, like, a miniature horse and the human half is scaled accordingly? What does that do to their diet? Shouldn't they eat less then? Why do we assume centaurs are big?

On another note: Winged humans. How do they work? Whichever sort of wings they are - bat wings, fairy wings, angel-type wings, bird wings of another sort - is there ANY way to make that happen? In Earth gravity? I assume they have a delicate bone structure, but how do the wings even attach?

Comments

[dragonwolf]

According to Wikipedia, one of the theories on the origin of the centaur mythos is a reaction of infantry-based civilizations to their first encounter with horse-based civilizations, where at a distance (and maybe close up if animals that were the right size to use as mounts were non-existent?), the man and the horse appear to be one creature. As such, they would be standard man and horse sized.

That said, I don't think centaurs would be herbavores (particularly since they are widely depecticed as being skilled with a bow), so they could consume more calorically-dense foods, thereby not needing to eat as much in volume to meet their needs. When including animal-based food sources (particularly fatty meats), it can be easy to rack up the calories.

As for the winged humans, I'll have to see if I can find archives of the discussions from the Gargoyles fandom on the topic (since the Gargoyles were typically structured the same as winged humans) with regards to their capability for flight. The general theory that I recall is a combination of a light skeleton and a "flight bladder," which would hold some lighter than air gas (probably most likely hydrogen).

Another good resource for theories on the mechanics of flight of mythical beings is Animal Planet's Dragons: Fantasy Made Real.

As for the wing structure, I'd have to go back to Gargoyles for that one, particularly for the angel-like attachment. Two theories I recall are a) two sets of shoulder blades and b) the wings attach to the existing shoulder blades. The first would provide the typical moving-wings-still-arms movement that most people imagine winged humanoids to have. The other would likely require at least some movement of the arms to facilitate the movement of the wings.

The most likely scenario would probably actually be neither, as real wings are the creature's arms (note the bone structure of birds and bats), or use to arm to control body-attached membranes (ala flying squirrels). Therefore, the creature's wing structure would likely look more like World of Warcraft's proto drake or Gargoyles' Lexington.

[conuly]

Well, Lexington WAS always one of the cooler characters, but I want humans with wings. Also, a jetpack, but that's a little superfluous.