#pegisides

[space-pegasus]

Humans do not exist in the main Space Pegasus universe. But they do exist in the Falconry Pegasus spin-off world. In this world humans would classify Pegasus based on their flight type. They can be grouped further into sub-types but there are typically 4 main types of wings recognized.

??? Wings: Typically seen as the most balanced in terms of flight, while not as fast as Swifts they are still powerful fliers, and have decent soaring abilities. Their flight style is good for saving energy as it doesn’t contain much high activity. Typically seen as the best parters for learners as most are easily trainable and do not require high skill level, however there are always exceptions as some species are very high strung and require high level expert skills to handle.

Swift Wings: As the name suggests very fast and agile fliers, their flying style is very high activity and they have some of the best maneuverability, they are not recommended for learners as they are often as high strung as they are good at flying. Frantic crashing into things and damaged feathers are common with these pegasus under an untrained hand.

Glide Wings: These pegasus are not very fast fliers and lack any qualities that would make them good hunting partners, most are soaring type fliers that either have vulture or seabird like lifestyles. They are not used for falconry or really anything else as their habits mean they often don’t hang around areas humans live, and their temperaments mean they don’t stick around either.

Ground Wings: As the name suggests most of these pegasus are flightless, those that can fly prefer to stay on the ground and have poor or limited flight capabilities. To compensate they are typically very huge, powerful and belligerent. They aren’t used for falconry and it is well known to stay away from them.

[note everything is still in concept stage, names of the wing types featured in this post could always be subject to change in the future]

[space-pegasus]

Hi Would You Like To Talk To Me About Flying? Let’s overanalyze the biomechanics of each type of flight and how they put limits to how big you can get. To start off it is unlikely that any animal weighing 500kg could fly given everything we know about gravity and biomechanics. So what is the maximum weight you can achieve and still be a flying animal?

With animals that fly like birds the limbs that are not used for flying are going to be far more robust than the limbs used for flying, requiring a huge pelvic girdle to sufficiently launch into the air. As such the legs used to power the launch are dead weight when flying severely limiting how big you can get, with estimates placing the maximum weight at 70kg. You’d also need to give your flying creature the same weight saving adaptations birds have pneumatized bones, air sacs for unidirectional air flow. So if you were to create a flying animal that flies like a bird you most likely would not be able to get bigger than Argentavis which weighed 70 kilos, had a 7 meter wingspan, and probably flew at speeds of 60 km/h. Though, there are some unpublished estimates stating it could reach around 100 kilos. To become airborne an animal that heavy could achieve this through running a downhill slope with sufficient wind or possibly just opening its wings in a particularly windy area. Important to note that weight limits for animals that fly like albatrosses are different, their long narrow wings mean they max at an estimated 41kg with 7m wings as they likely would not be able to sustain themselves without sufficient wind.

What if it flies like a bat? First off bats fly very differently from birds, their wings attach to their ankle meaning the hind legs are part of the wing and can be used in flight, and they quad launch meaning they take off with their forelimbs and can put both flight and launching muscles in the same place. Bats are also slightly more agile than birds since they can control every part of their wing in flight and there is evidence the tiny hairs on their wings can sense barometric pressure and wind speed allowing fine micro adjustments. However, the largest bats max out at almost 2 kilos and 2 meter wingspans. Major limits on their size are their cave/arboreal lifestyle, sprawled limbs when on the ground, lack of pneumatized bones, lack of an efficient breathing system, and birds already fill the large flying animal niches. So without any special adaptations they likely cannot exceed around 4kg with a 3 meter wingspan. If bats did evolve an upright limb posture, pneumatized skeleton, efficient lungs, and birds disappeared then they could probably reach sizes similar to Pteranodon of 50-80 kilos with a 3-7 meter wingspan. Interestingly bats are the most likely candidates for a scientifically grounded pegasus, though they would be a tetrapod not a hexapod, as unlike birds you wouldn't need to jump through as many hoops to make them superficially resemble a horse.

How about a pegasus that flies like a pterosaur? Again your pegasus would need to be a tetrapod rather than a hexapod which would allow all the limbs to be used in flight. So how large could you get? Pterosaurs unlike birds and bats had the best combination of features to allow giant sizes with air sacs for efficient breathing, pneumatized bones, wing membranes that attach to the hind limbs, and quad launching. Though this would mean your pegasus wouldn’t have powerful hind legs as pterosaurs had gracile pelvic girdles as all the powerful muscles were in the pectoral region. Currently the largest flying animal that ever existed was the azhdarchid Quetzalcoatlus, the largest published estimates placed them at maximum 250kg with a wingspan of 11-13 meters and a flight speed of 80-90km/h. There are more recent unpublished estimates that placed them at 360kg, which is actually reasonable if they had the bone and muscle density of a real animal.

Moving on from vertebrate wings what about an insect winged pegasus? Not going to happen, it is simply far too improbable for mammal ever evolve insect like wings. You could however have an insect that converges to to look superficially similar to a horse, still unlikely but not as unlikely. Another thing to note is that unlike other arthropods winged insects do not molt once they gain their wings. This is a major limitation to their size as they can no longer heal injuries once they are flighted. Meganisopterans were most likely as big flying insects can get so your pegabug would max 150 grams with a 75cm wingspan.

Most importantly your flying creature would need proper attachment sites for the flight muscles. Most depictions of hexapodal pegasus, griffons, hippogriffs, dragons etc just attach the wings to the shoulder. This configuration would not work as the pectoral muscles are already being used for the forelimbs leaving no room for flight muscles to attach. You would need another set of pectoral muscles separate from the forelimbs, importantly one with a keel for those muscles to attach to. Flight muscles on flying vertebrates also tend to be around 1/5 or more of their overall body mass, and no flying vertebrates fly slower than 30km/h, with most typically flying at a 50km/h minimum.

Finally, and most importantly it is worth noting that giant azhdarchids are huge outliers in terms of giant flying animals, most tended to range around Argentavis/Pteranodon sized at 50-80kg with 5-7 meter wingspans. With all this said, if we were to apply earth physics to a hexapodal pegasus then it would reach sizes no larger than 100kg with 7m wings. Or if it has albatross like wings then a max of 41kg with 7m wings. With the ideal habitat being foothills of giant mountain ranges or particularly windy grasslands. For a flying animal that hovers the largest birds that can maintain hovering flight are just slightly smaller than 25g with 25cm wings.

Sorry if you've been asked this many times, but would you do a tutorial on how to draw winged horses? I really really love your art.

Hi there!

I've got a couple of resources:

Tips for Drawing Horses

Tips for Drawing Wings

And here's a little page of notes on how I attach wings to horses :)

~ Larn

[space-pegasus]

Lips or Beaks? Well it depends on the Pegasus.

Some Pegasus have prehensile equine lips, some have lips of hardened beak-like skin similar to sauropods, and some have beaks. Depending on the Pegasus the beak either starts at the premaxilla or just below the eye.

[space-pegasus]

On earth they are known as Cooper's Hawk, but in this world they are known as the Copper Pegasus for the color on their chests.

Just like the Cooper’s Hawk the Copper Pegasus will sometimes kill their prey or other Copper Pegasus by holding them underwater until they drown. Alternately they also sometimes just eat their prey while it’s still alive.

[space-pegasus]

Time to introduce people to a very fascinating bird, or pegasus we should say. The Hoatzin! First off they stink like really bad, they have a very pungent aroma like a pile of manure and that’s because of their diet. They use their huge crops to ferment leaves, flowers, and sometimes fruit however since leaves make up the majority of their diet they need to eat a lot of them since leaves offer very few nutrients. But hey they also have two claws on each of their wings :)

These pegasus live in the tropical flooded swamps and forests. However their flight abilities are poor compared to other flighted pegasus due to their small keels. However they are proficient enough swimmers and nimble enough in the trees that they will more often jump into the water to swim away when threatened only scrambling up into the canopies once they feel the danger has passed.

[space-pegasus]

Like Oilbirds and some Swifts on earth the some pegasus are capable of echolocation. Even more fascinating is that the pegasus based on Aerodramus swifts are capable of making nests out of their own saliva.

[space-pegasus]

Since birds sometimes go sit in a tree and pout if they don’t catch anything I’d imagine a pegasus would do the same. When they fail to catch something on a hunt they go and sit in a tree to pout.

[space-pegasus]

There are no humans in the SP universe. But in a non-cannon AU humans do exist. And you have falconry with Pegasus. Falconry Horse girl is a combo that can slay gods.

[space-pegasus]

Space Pegasus now has an open ask box. For any curiosities about the history, lore, species, civilization, AUs, and any other queries.

Keep in mind a lot of stuff in this world is still in concept phase and answers could be subject to change in the future.

[space-pegasus]

In the Space Pegasus universe what is the difference between Pegasus vs Pegasi?

Pegasus are in the clade that is this world’s evolutionary equivalent to earth Equids. Pegasi on the other hand are actually more closely related to this world’s Bats and superficially resemble Pegasus.

[space-pegasus]

The fictional worlds of horses often take us to Ancient Greece, Europe, or to the cowboys of the west where humans use horses to conquer and colonize lands. But in this world there are no humans. Here in the world of Space Pegasus follows the journey of the winged horses as we explore how they evolved and learned not only to traverse the skies ut the stars as well. Join us as we explore their civilizations, where they came from, how they rose, fell, their advanced technologies, explored galaxies, and what the future has in store for our intrepid equine explorers.