My title to this post is sappy. Yes, I know, but with the amount of time I've spent researching arboreal locomotion lately in an effort to, for some reason, incorporate a sugar glider into a short story of mine, this fixation and the resulting corniness can only be expected. I've learned a lot but these are two facts that stick out to me:
- squirrels have reversible feet, ie, their ankles allow their feet to swivel 360 degrees
- prehensile tails in many animals that live in trees actually have an adhesive patch on the tip
Oh, the movements and adaptations of the various animals that I've studied are more than enough fodder for fiction...the imagery and symbolism and sheer wonder of these creatures and their ability to conduct arboreal locomotion is good stuff, the kind of stuff you won't soon forget after reading. See for yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arboreal_locomotion
The fiction that has flowed so far is here, incomplete, but on its way to being something...I think...
Facts like, the ins and outs of arboreal locomotion, a tree to tree
movement that kept the animals safe from predators and
with easy access to otherwise unreachable food. To have that
life, Rae Ann thought, the nights of a marsupial with membranous hands,
curled into its mother’s pouch when the flying was over. Did they know
about the torpor they’d experience too? Did they know it before it
happened to them? Rae Ann would rather hibernate. The distinction was one
without meaning.
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