Which of these verbs is the most biomechanically advanced: run, swim, or fly?

What a wonderfully strange question! Haha : )

This is coming from someone who knows nothing but the basic basicness of all three, but I’d have to say I think it’s between the Cat and the Bird, since Fish have been wiggling through water for much longer (evolution over time builds greater complexity?), and they don’t have to worry about falling or jumping…
And then between the Cat and the Bird, I want to say the Bird, because they can walk and fly, whereas a Cat can only walk. Plus flying just seems harder.

Maybe it’s all jealousy on my part, though. I can walk. I can swim. I can’t fly.

The cat, because there are more mechanisms in the process of running, as opposed to swimming or flying.

Flying seems to me to be the most complicated, as it involves defying the pull of gravity. Swimming the easiest, as you weigh less in the ocean, and it is easier to move. Also, swimming evolved first. However, things in the sky have never triumphed over other life. There was no Age of the Birds, when birds ruled supreme over other life. Life is too diverse in the oceans for there to be one species that tops them all, and flying animals are too limited by the requirements needed to fly, Land animals include the dinosaurs and humans, which dominate their time periods. I vote land animals.

@PhiNotPi so, your logic is…Superiority of structure is premised by domination of realm of existence?

From whose perspective? ours or the animals?

Cats duh, they eat birds and fish, but then there’s the dog who chase the cat and occasionally, and then there’s my dog-cheetah-rabbit hybrid from Down Under who lets the kitty think its safe up in the tree and then pulls off a super jump and maims the puss.

So obviously its running.

Slither, hop, and swing deserve honorable mention.

Bird and flying beat the other two. Bird and cat eat fish (pelicans). Birds can dive-bomb a running cat or rodent (hawk). Swimming and running do you no good if you are in pursuit of something in the air; it must choose to come to you.

Given those three creatures, it’s a tough call. Some cats can jump so well you would think they do fly, and though they may hate to do it, they can swim if need be. And some fish are even called flying fish, as they can break the water’s surface at terrific speeds and use their fins to glide in the air. But the best of birds are incredibly adept at flying, ostriches run far faster than most creatures and manage it on just two legs, and penguins can swim with their wings faster than most fish. That’s how they stay so well fed. So I would have to give the nod to the birds.

But if you will indulge me in a bit of human chauvinism, there is only one creature that has learned, with the help of a few gadgets the creature devised, to run at nearly the speed of sound, swim faster than any fish, dive to the bottom of the Challenger Deep, and fly to the M,oon and beyond. IMHO, when it comes to MO, we humans hold all the trump cards.

Milo here; It’s simple. I can swim, run and fly.

Flight and sustained self-powered flight is a true gift of a God if there ever was one!

@Cruiser I have had dreams in which I could just soar up into the air rather like superman. The feeling was among the most exquisite I have experienced in a dream. I totally agree it must feel great to be able to fly without needing an airplane.

@ETpro I have had similar dreams in the past, but a la Buck Rogers minus the jet-pack. But as for the question asked: It is a strange question as the verbs are just verbs, and not entities in themselves.

As for the named beasts MO’s and which is trump: That’s very subjective, and I don’t think we could ever really get an objective answer. I have been wrong in my life, though.

@Andreas Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t want to have a jet-pack strapped on, or gossamer wings hooked to my arms so I had to keep flapping them to fly. In the dream I could just decide to rise, hover, soar or whatever. It was the freedom to manipulate gravity by thought that made it such a feeling of freedom.

@ETpro My dreams of those times were that I went up like a rocket at will, and my thought was the guiding process. There was definitely NO jet-pack. It just felt like that. It was wonderful.

I’ve been told dreams of this type come about at stressful times of life. Maybe. I certainly had stress at those times.

@Andreas If stress will do it, I should be soaring tonight, because the lid popped shut on the pressure cooker of my life today. :-)

@ETpro The stress thing I mentioned may not always apply as this seems to be the case with you tonight!

But then again, maybe it will kick in when you go to sleep. All the best to you.

@Andreas Thanks. No soaring to report yet. :-)

Answer depends on perspective. You would say most advanced form is the one you can’t do. For us humans, that would be flying (impossible without use of technology). Fish and birds would probably disagree. So there is no real answer to that.