When Science Class Messes with your Favorite Book Series (spoilers for book 2, and mentions of fangs from book 4)

This year in science class my boys learned about flying creatures of the fifth day of creation. In learning about birds, they learned about flight and all that goes into that (thrust, lift, drag, etc.). First of all, birds have to have some serious flight muscles to achieve the thrust needed to create lift for flight! The pectoralis muscle, in particular, is huge and connects to the chest at the keel bone for the downstroke. A smaller, but still very important muscle, the supracoracoideus muscle, is used for the upstroke. After looking at pictures of Artham, my son realized that there was no room on Artham's body for these muscles and no place for them to attach. How is he going to get the thrust he needs to fly? Then he noticed that when Artham flew, "two human legs dangled behind the wings," meaning that Artham had a whole lot of drag. Way too much drag to maintain flight. My son's conclusion? "Artham can't fly." 😭😭😭

He would also like me to mention that on page 5 of TMitH, there are birds in the background behind the ship, and they are showing off and taunting Artham, saying, "Ha ha ha ha ha! You can't flyyyy!!!!"

Later they learned about bats. There are two main types of bats: megabats and microbats. The megabats are obviously bigger and the microbats are smaller, but the main difference between the two types is their diet. Megabats eat plants and microbats eat other animals (usually insects). Only microbats use echolocation since they're the ones chasing after flying insects, and megabats don't have to worry about the plants trying to escape. 😏 Both types of bats actually see very well. We had a hard time deciding which type of bat was used for melding in the Wingfeather Saga, since the bats were huge, but the bat fangs were carnivorous and also seemed to use echolocation rather than eyesight (even though all bats can see just fine). Based on the fact that the were carnivorous and could hear where people were, we thought they were most likely melded with giant microbats. But here's the thing: microbats eat a lot of insects. A brown bat can eat up to 600 mosquitoes an hour. If there were giant microbats living in Dang, they would be eating a lot of bugs! And if they are suddenly being captured and no longer eating all those bugs? In the words of my son, "The Green Hollows have an insect problem."

Oh, but that's not all! If the bats were in fact megabats, there would be a whole new slew of problems. Many megabats are pollinators. They pollinate avocados, bananas, dates, figs, mangos and peaches. Other bats eat fruits, and then deposit the seeds of those fruits in new places. Some seeds will not even germinate unless they first pass through a bat's digestive system! The Green Hollows is well know for its fruit and its fruit loving people. Without bats to help pollinate and spread seeds, the Green Hollows might no longer produce such plentiful and delicious fruit! All the world would be sad. So either way, megabats or microbats, the Green Hollows is in trouble!