Cladistics: Chalacheiroptera

After the World Scarring event devastated the planet, Eryobis was undone of all its previous volant vertebrates; namely the “Volichthyes”.

In the wake of the World Scarring, there would be two new groups of vertebrates taking to the sky.

Arising some 40 million years later, the Chalacheiroptera evolved from Effingodactyl Cryptognath Ansisospondyls and began as surprisingly mammal like creatures that kept their young in pouches. Due to the way their muscles and joints worked, the Chalacheiroptera evolved their hindlegs into their main wings for powered flight, while turning their visendal front limbs into steering wings. On the steering wings, they have one very long clawed finger that they use to manipulate the pouch, but also use for preening and feeding.

Their main wings have a strange configuration with the digit membranes. The first finger is clawed and usually shorter than the others. Its membrane is completely separated from the wing. The second and third fingers are connected by a membrane, but the membrane on the third finger is also separated form the wing. The fourth finger is also completely separated from the other membranes and the membrane of the fifth finger connects to the body. This strange configuration gives the impression of some sort of feathers and likely aids them in aerial manoeuvrability.

Unlike the Stauropterygians where we can still see surviving members from almost all steps of their evolution, only the truly flighted Chalacheiropterans can be seen today. But despite this, they are nearly as diverse and just as wide spread as the Stauropterygians. In modern forms, the ancestral ear pinnae are turned downwards. This might have evolved for either hunting or aerodynamics, or perhaps a combination of both.

They still give birth to underdeveloped babies and raise their young in pouches, but usually only for a short time before the young are moved to a nest.