Feathered dinos

[thetyrantlizard]

I must say one of my favourite books is The Origin and Evolution of Birds by Alan Feduccia ;D

As far as dromeosaurs are concerned, well, the existence of fuzz on sinosauropteryx has been disproven time and again. It's only the palaeontologists who simply refuse to believe that. All the fury of Kevin Padian does not, however, change the fact that those aren't feathers on sinosauropteryx.

And, more broadly speaking, dinosaurs with soft tissues preserved, like scipionyx, compsognathus, and juravenator, which phylogenetic analysis would regard as bird precursors, show no sign of feathers or protofuzz. This does not include the carnotaurs, tyrannosaurs, edmontosaurs, stegosaurs, ankylosaurs, sauropods, etc. which clearly indicate the preservation of scale impressions, if not the actual scales themselves.

And it should strike one as rather suspicious that most allegedly protofuddured dinosaurs have been 'discovered' by 'farmers' in Liaoning. The archaeoraptor episode has alas taught nobody anything.

[thetyrantlizard]

Ernst Mayr stated that in his book What Evolution Is, published just a few years before he died. Since he is an ornithologist I rate his opinion quite highly

[Thorondor 33]

thetyrantlizard said:

And it should strike one as rather suspicious that most allegedly protofuddured dinosaurs have been 'discovered' by 'farmers' in Liaoning. The archaeoraptor episode has alas taught nobody anything.

Pay close attention to 'farmers' in quotes everyone.

[tomhet]

dinotoyblog said:

Get with the program folks, the times they are a'changin! Is everyone on this forum 60 years old? Why are you all so stuck in the mud? ;D

This isn't a hotly debated topic. It isn't even _debated_ amongst palaeontologists.

Read this sentence a few times so that it sinks in - "all of the fossils of dromaeosaurs with soft tissues preservation have feathers! " And if that doesn't do the job, then look at this feathered dinosaur fossil (Microraptor).



That Velociraptor had feathers is not a guess - the scientific method is called using "the phylogenetic bracket".

You guys are stuck in the past
pick up a National Geographic or something.

I understand that you might not WANT dromaeosaurs and closely related forms to be feathered, perhaps you feel they do not look as good - but that doesn't change the fact that they actually were feathered.

Yeah, you read this so it finally sinks in:

All of the fossils of dromaeosaurs with soft tissues preservation are Chinese frauds.

The phylogenetic bracket principle will be valid in this case when they actually find REAL (and by that I mean non-Chinese) feather impressions. Meanwhile, I'm very happy with my perfectly accurate, non-feathered replicas.

[thetyrantlizard]

Erm, dinotoyblog, that 'dino' image is actually of sinornithosaurus, not microraptor.

[richard]

I buy national geographic. And yes, the magazines features some dinos with feathers. But only some dinosaurs had feathers, some dromaerosaurids had feathers, according to fossils, thus some have not been found with them.
So just don't be too radical, don't say no feathers only equal to birds, but also dont generalize all dinosaurs had feathers.
check this out news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7004727.stm, I hate dromaerosaurids with feathers , nevertheless I won't deny the truth, that's what science is about.
Anyway, hope is the last thing to die, because this is a possiblity (read well the bbc article) ;D
I think this is the begining of a big struggle

[tomhet]

The key word here is 'probably'.

Unless a big, clear set of feathers is found, I'll refuse to believe these pseudo-scientific articles.

[dinotoyblog]

Thanks for the correction - the feathered dinosaur is indeed Sinornithosaurus. Another feathered dinosaur genus.

Microraptor is feathered too:


Yep, the Archaeoraptor was a composite of a bird and a dinosaur fossil. It is incorrect to say that the fossil material is fake though. it obviously doesn't follow that all feathered dinosaurs must be fakes.

Sinosauropteyx is controversial (it is not a dromaeosaur), but it doesnt follow that all feathered dinosaurs are controversial.

I am obviously not advocating that ALL dinosaurs were feathered.

[dinotoyblog]

richard said:

I hate dromaerosaurids with feathers , nevertheless I won't deny the truth, that's what science is about.

Superb! I extend a hearty virtual hand shake to you!

Its not about Meyer, or Horner, or Feduccia, or me or you. What we think is irrelevant. The proof is, as they say, in the pudding. The important thing is WHY we think what we do. Come an everyone, help yourselves to a warm bowl of science pudding

[dinotoyblog]

One of my illustrations from 2002 (!)

Showing that raptors can have feathers AND look cool (in my humble opinion)

[dinotoyblog]

However, knowing how much stronger the evidence is now, it is unlikely that Deinonychus was really so bald. This was me being conservative