• Question: WHAT DO THINK OF FLYING PIGS

    Asked by rfaulkner9 to Cassie, Greg, Karen, Sofia, Tommy on 7 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Thomas Doherty-Bone

      Thomas Doherty-Bone answered on 7 Nov 2013:

      Not much. Never seen one. Not sure what the purpose of engineering one will be. I would also be concerned for the pig if the wings didn’t work.

      Tom

    • Photo: Sofia Franco

      Sofia Franco answered on 8 Nov 2013:

      I’m sure I would love them! (If I ever encountered one!) How awesome would it be to have pigs flying around? However, animals are normally adapted to the environment they live in…so I wonder how having wings might be advantageous for the pigs! Also, animals that fly normally have a lighter skeleton, are aerodynamic, well insulated and have a body weight that can be supported by the wings when flying or enough power to take off….how wonder how this could work with pigs…can you imagine the size and strength of the wings just to take off? They would probably need a propulsion system just to get off the ground!

    • Photo: Cassandra Raby

      Cassandra Raby answered on 10 Nov 2013:

      Yep Sofia is right… how would those chubby pigs manage to get wings big enough to fly?
      Maybe after quite a long time the pigs could evolve and make all the changes needed to get themselves into the air. But in order to evolve you usually need a reason to cause this ‘Natural Selection’! In this case the pigs most able to fly would be the ones that are most likely to make more piglets (or just better piglets)… and then, after time, the pigs would evolve!

      As I study disease I thought I’d add a little about how pigs flying could make humans more ill. In some places pigs can carry diseases that humans can catch. If the pigs started to be able to fly then they would be better at spreading diseases across the world!

    • Photo: Karen Bacon

      Karen Bacon answered on 11 Nov 2013:

      I think the idea of flying pigs is a little terrifying – pigs are very smart and quite noisy. They communicate by grunting at each other almost all the time. They are omnivores – that means that they eat both plants and animals – and they have extremely strong jaws and some also have tusks. Now imagine one landing in your garden or on the balcony of your flat to nibble at something that has caught their eye! Imagine the noise and how many things would get eaten or knocked over! And as Cassandra has already said, flying pigs would also probably spread diseases, some of which could be transferred to humans. I also wonder what type of wings would work for flying pigs – birds have hollow bones that make them light enough to fly but pigs obviously do not, so that would make it tricky. Altogether, I think earth-bound pigs are probably for the best.

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