Yea, it does. At first I thought it was kinda hokey. Oh, just "jack in" to a horse and you can talk to it and ride it... "jack in" to a bird and you can ride it... but the more I thought about it from an exobiology standpoint; it is entirely feasible. It's an alien genome; why wouldn't it be possible for different creatures to share a common genetic feature like that. A common, successful mutation somewhere farther up the genetic tree; possibly much farther up considering even some trees had the ability to link.

Look at Earth; most of the higher creatures have two eyes and those eyes are on their head. In Avatar, the appendage was located coming off the head of all the creatures and had a common structure.

I agree with Shaggy, if I was a biologist and I saw that, I'd go nuts to study it.