#wingdrake

Baunos

Tree ended up being very big, making the image blurry as it condensed it. Here you have a link to the Google Drawings, you should be able to zoom in with the manual zoom tool.

Another Monster Hunter Taxonomy. This time the flying wyverns. This was more challenging than the cephalopods not just because of the higher number of monsters, but Flying Wyverns have no real life counterparts to guess from.

The main challenge here was brought from how inconsistent Flying Wyvern anatomy is. In the end, I think I've managed to somewhat figure it out, and I am happy with the divisions in the tree. This one has notes scattered though the different branches to help explain these divisions, focusing mostly on wing anatomy.

I've decided to interpret Flying Wyverns as ancestrally bipedal, with quadrupedal movement being a trait convergently evolved multiple times independently.

Tobi Kadachi here is placed within "Scansoriowyvernia", representing a sister group to flying wyvern that remained gliders and never evolved flight.

Magnamalo's arm blade has been interpreted as a repurposed wing finger, making it a secondarily flightless Flying Wyvern like Akantor, Ukanlos and the Blos. Its placement next to Barioth is explained by the saber teeth and feline-like facial features.

The 2 wyvern rex designs I've seen online have been interpreted as 2 different species, going by the idea that, in the world of Monster Hunter, Wyvern Rex fossils could actually be those of different tigrex-like species, like how early on in paleontology almost all theropods were under the Megalosaurus genus.

As for the non-pseudowyverns: Arkveld gets its own corner, cause it's an anatomical nightmare. The rest have been placed in 1 of 2 groups: Rhabdophoroptera (Rod-bearing wings), who increased wing structural support by developing a variable number of styliforms (This group includes most Wingdrakes); and Maniptera (Hand wings), who instead increased structural support by integrating more of their free fingers into the wing by extending the membrane between them.

Astalos' insect-like wing nerves have been interpreted as branched and fused versions of the "Wing rods" of Polyradioptera. Its placement next to Harpios being explained by the head ornamentation articulated at the base.

Finally, the cave wyverns, Khezu, Gigginox and the Qurio, have been treated as completely unrelated to the other flying wyverns.

Last yearly comm for @Roid_Mil0 on Twitter, featuring the Perlastros, the Pirate King Wyvern!

Monster May 2021, Day 04: Iconic Setting