Feathered dinosaurs

[Dinotoyforum]

A thread for our favourite reoccuring topic ;D

Here's the Dino Toy Forum oath, repeat after me: " I couldn't care less if Velociraptor is feathered or not. Whats true is true, and my motive is truth" OK, we may begin...

I may raise the temperature and tone a little, but it's all in good sport I will also try to deal with every point so we don't end up going around in circles.

Piltdown said:

"I certainly wouldn't put it past a old-style trained Chinese calligrapher to paint brushstrokes that resemble feathers on, say, a fossil of Jeholornis. "

Painting feathers? Well it's a testable hypothesis.

"And it is more likely that instead of starting from scratch they would take bits and pieces from several different critters to form a chimera -- again, archaeoraptor is the paradigm."

OK, so we have our Piltown Chickenraptor.

"We just haven't caught the rest yet, since apparently the tests that could conclude once and for all the composition and structure of the "fuzz" are too destructive of the specimen."

We just haven't caught the rest yet? This is presumtive, and sounds to me like typical 'true believer' babble. Loch Ness monster? just haven't caught it yet...

"And the lesson from archaeoraptor is that not even an X-ray and a CAT-scan caught the problem -- the X-ray was pictured on the original archaeoraptor article. It was not modern technology but the objections of ornithologists (Storrs Olson's blistering critique of National Geographic comes to mind) that broke the case open, along with Xu Xing luckily finding the genuine other half of archaeoraptor, or whatever it is called now."

The lesson from Archaeoraptor is therefore that it IS possible to spot the fakes. Plus, technology is not completely useless: Xrays and CATscans can reveal some types of forgery, if not all. You make it sound like it is impossible to spot the fakes, that it is a lost cause. It is not - as Archaeoraptor showed.

"If Xu Xing had not found the counterslab and the other half of the dino, I am virtually certain Czerkas and Currie and Norell and Padian and Chiappe would be fighting Feduccia and Larry Martin tooth and nail till this day and proclaiming archaeoraptor as genuine."

Without any evidence to the contrary, Czerkas et al. would be completely justified in doing so. This is the erection of hypotheses followed by falsification - science in action. Presuming the fossils are fake, does not constitute falsification. As you bring them up, are Feduccia and Martin of the opinion that all feathered dinosaurs from China are fakes? Is anyone seriously claiming that we can't take any fossils from China seriously because some of them may be fake?

This whole argument is tantamount to denying human origins amongst apes, because Piltdown man was a forgery. Do you disagree?

Are you sure you are not just denying the evidence for feathered dinosaurs because it doesn't fit with your romantic view of what a dinosaur should be? I also notice you use 'Brontosaurus' for example.

The countdown to a feathered dinosaur fossil outside of China is still ticking by the way....any day now! ;D

I also wanted to address some of your other remarks from dinoworld but I will do that in another post.

[Dinotoyforum]

"Evidence for scales - scales from other dinosaurs such as carnotaurus, pelecanimimus, juravenator, edmontosaurus, tyrannosaurus, etc."

But nobody is making the claim that Carno or Edmont had feathered. And scales and feathers are not mutually exclusive anyway - look at a birds feet.

"Evidence for feathers in dinos - mostly "fuzz" that under the microscope are revealed to be actually collagen fibers. Said fibres are similar to those found on an ichthyosaurus, so unless ichthyosaurs are also birds the feathered dinos don't exist."

mostly 'fuzz' - ah, and don't forget the beautiful (plumaceous edit - I meant 'Pennaceous') asymettrical feathers!
I would be surprised if ichthyosaurs had feathers and I would also be surprised if Fuzzy raptors, or sinosauropteryx had skin like an ichthyosaur.

What about caudipteryx and archaeopteryx?-- they are birds. Microraptor--I think it's a fake. The original specimen (most of the media don't mention this, but I did read part of the original paper) was 'found' by a 'farmer' in 'Liaoning', which should raise everyone's eyebrows, and the writers of the papers themselves had to remove many portions of the 'microrpator' that were found to be spurious--including the head, and some of the wings. They left some of the microraptor intact, but I took one look at it and said that there is an old farmer who is proficient in Chinese calligraphy who is chortling at the gullibility of Western foreign devil scientists"

There are two species of Microraptor, including three specimens of M. zhaoianus and six specimens of M. gui. To clarify - you think these are all fake, and that the farmers are going out of their way to make them all look identical to genus and species level?
I'm not sure if the portion of Microraptor included in 'Archaeoraptor' is included in this material by the way.


"Also, while most paleontologists do accept the birds are dinos theory, prominent ornithologists don't. I hope I won't be faulted for relying on the word of people who study actually birds for a living over the assertions of, say, Jack Horner, who can't even understand the implications of long serrated teeth and powerful jaws in a tyrannosaur, or Kevin Padian, who held back pterosaur locomotion studies by his now disproven claim that pterosaurs could run on two legs while on the ground. How quetzalcoatlus was supposed to drag 20-ft wings while dashing through the Cretaceous landscape escapes me."

This last para is all ad hom attacks and straw men.

[tomhet]

Feb 14, 2008 14:33:50 GMT Dinotoyforum said:

The countdown to a feathered dinosaur fossil outside of China is still ticking by the way....any day now! ;D

I think that's my whole point. NO feathered dinosaurs have been found outside China. Isn't it funny that NO feathered dinosaurs had been found until a few years ago, until 'scientists' proposed that the Velociraptor may have had feathers? As far as I'm concerned, this whole business is a big Chinese scam to satiate a thirst created by the media. And people have eagerly absorbed this stuff. Science's foremost 'findings' have been proven wrong before. I think this is the case, it all comes down to a hype. So, as long as we don't see a living dinosaur, this whole debate will go on forever. I prefer to envision them as non-feathered.

[Dinotoyforum]

Feb 14, 2008 18:59:03 GMT @tomhet said:

Feb 14, 2008 14:33:50 GMT Dinotoyforum said:

The countdown to a feathered dinosaur fossil outside of China is still ticking by the way....any day now! ;D

I think that's my whole point. NO feathered dinosaurs have been found outside China. Isn't it funny that NO feathered dinosaurs had been found until a few years ago, until 'scientists' proposed that the Velociraptor may have had feathers?

As far as I'm concerned, this whole business is a big Chinese scam to satiate a thirst created by the media. And people have eagerly absorbed this stuff. Science's foremost 'findings' have been proven wrong before. I think this is the case, it all comes down to a hype. So, as long as we don't see a living dinosaur, this whole debate will go on forever. I prefer to envision them as non-feathered.

I mentioned the countdown as a prediction - I predict that a feathered dinosaur will be discovered outside of China, probably within the next five years.

No, the debate will not go on forever. That's what creationists say about evolution - it's called a good case of 'moving goalposts syndrome'. The growing evidence will never convince anyone who does not want to be convinced. This is why I suggested you take the oath at the start of this thread

The 'debate', the scientific debate, will end. It's pretty much case closed already. There will always be conspiracy theorists (this seems to be what you are suggesting? Are the palaeontologists in on it?) and accusations of decipt and forgery. Again - take evolution as an example: There are STILL folks claiming that there are no transitional fossils - filling a gap just creates two more unfilled gaps. This is the moving goalpost fallacy I mentioned, thus, I will make an additional prediction. When a feathered dinosaur IS discovered outside of China, the anti-dino-bird folks (all three of them! will claim that it is a fake too. Ad nauseum.

I should make a point on the rarity of fossil soft parts. I work on plesiosaurs. There are thousands of specimens worldwide, but none of these show convincing evidence of soft skin or anatomy. Does this mean they didn't have skin? Of course not. Soft tissue fossils are rare. Liaoning represents a special deposit, preserving soft tissue not only of dino-birds, but a huge variety of other animal and plants under the sun in that place and time. The rarity of fossil feathered dinosaurs is exactly what we would expect. It is no more odd that they are coming out of China, than it would be if they were all coming out of the right kind of deposit in Kenya, or Germany, or the USA. These deposits are super-rare!

I mentioned Archaeopteryx in a previous thread and this was dimissed out of hand as a bird. Fine, taxonimically speaking it is - but to dismiss Archy as having no relevence to this debate is intellectually dishonest. Sure its a bird, but its a bird with claws, teeth, and a long tail.

[piltdown]

"but to dismiss Archy as having no relevence to this debate is intellectually dishonest. Sure its a bird, but its a bird with claws, teeth, and a long tail."

I'm certainly not suggesting that archaeoptetryx is not unimportant. On the contrary, archaeopteryx shows quite conclusively that birds did not evolve from the velociraptors, who evolved millions of years later.

Re: soft tissues, I saw a photograph of a stenopterygius fossil with exactly the same "fuzz" in exactly the same location as those purportedly on Dilong. Ichthyosaurs are therefore birds too!

"technology is not completely useless: Xrays and CATscans can reveal some types of forgery, if not all. You make it sound like it is impossible to spot the fakes, that it is a lost cause. It is not - as Archaeoraptor showed."

Indeed. This is why I suggest scientists study the fossils first before making utterly unfounded statements to a generally clueless media.

But nobody is making the claim that Carno or Edmont had feathered

But indeed the claim has been made. I've personally seen pictures of feathered parasaurolophuses. That this flies against the evidence of hadrosaur scales has apparently not stopped anyone. Feathered allosaurs and dilophosaurs I've come across too. They may be merely products of artistic license, but the books they were in were written by scientists, which would give credence to such feathers in the minds of the common reader.

This last para is all ad hom attacks and straw men.

Ad hominem the attacks may be, but that just points to credibility, which is admissible.

The 'debate', the scientific debate, will end. It's pretty much case closed already.

Just because the scientists of the day have reached a consensus doesn't mean the consensus is correct. I'm sure all astronomers thought the Earth was the centre of the universe until Copernicus showed otherwise.

Are you sure you are not just denying the evidence for feathered dinosaurs because it doesn't fit with your romantic view of what a dinosaur should be? I also notice you use 'Brontosaurus' for example.

I think it is far more 'romantic' (whatever the term implies) to believe that the birds singing outside are dinosaurs than to say brontosaurs are reptiles.

And the use of the term 'apatosaurus' in referring the brontosaur, far from being an instance of the rigorousness of nomenclature, is actually an instance of inconsistency and pedantry. By this logic, megalosaurus should be called "Scrotum humanum", and microraptor should be called 'archaeoraptor', since it formed one-half of archaeoraptor. And what is going on with anatotitan, whose name has changed several times within my lifetime?

I predict that a feathered dinosaur will be discovered outside of China, probably within the next five years.

There's greater odds of finding a Loch Ness monster than discovering a feathered 'dinosaur' outside of China ;D Scipionyx and juravenator are the closest candidates found outside China for the preservation of feathers, had dinosaurs had feathers, yet they not only show no signs of fuzz, despite their close relations to the Chinese "fuzzy" [sic] dinosaurs, juravanetor actually has scales. But this has not stopped scientists from proclaiming juravenator must have had feathers and artists from portraying them with feathers! Some juravenator figures I've seen have more feathers than scales! Who now is ignoring scientific evidence?

[piltdown]

Feb 14, 2008 18:59:03 GMT @tomhet said:

Feb 14, 2008 14:33:50 GMT Dinotoyforum said:

The countdown to a feathered dinosaur fossil outside of China is still ticking by the way....any day now! ;D

I think that's my whole point. NO feathered dinosaurs have been found outside China. Isn't it funny that NO feathered dinosaurs had been found until a few years ago, until 'scientists' proposed that the Velociraptor may have had feathers? As far as I'm concerned, this whole business is a big Chinese scam to satiate a thirst created by the media.

Precisely.

[Dinotoyforum]

I'm certainly not suggesting that archaeoptetryx is not unimportant. On the contrary, archaeopteryx shows quite conclusively that birds did not evolve from the velociraptors, who evolved millions of years later.

Quit it with the straw men already! I did not say Archaeopteryx evolved from 'Velociraptors'. This is a debate about how closely related these animal are, and if they share a common ancestor with feathers (obviously older than both Arch and Veloc).
Again, I can pick an example used by Creationist to examplify:
"if we evolved from apes, then why are apes still around!?"

Re: soft tissues, I saw a photograph of a stenopterygius fossil with exactly the same "fuzz" in exactly the same location as those purportedly on Dilong. Ichthyosaurs are therefore birds too!


I dealt with this above. Do you think that Dilong had skin like an ichthyosaur? Could you tell me where the picture of the ichthyosaur is - I'm interested. I'm happy to accept, if you say so, that the 'fuzz' in Dilong and Sinornithosaurus is controversial, as one would expect from much more basal taxa. So lets stick to undisputable feathered dinosaurs for this discussion, lets not get side-tracked with 'fringe' issues ( ;D pun intended).

Indeed. This is why I suggest scientists study the fossils first before making utterly unfounded statements to a generally clueless media.

Another ad hominen. Scientists have studied the fossils, they just didn't provide interpretations (I admit that's what they are), or concludions you want to hear.

But indeed the claim has been made. I've personally seen pictures of feathered parasaurolophuses. That this flies against the evidence of hadrosaur scales has apparently not stopped anyone. Feathered allosaurs and dilophosaurs I've come across too. They may be merely products of artistic license, but the books they were in were written by scientists, which would give credence to such feathers in the minds of the common reader.

I have never seen these pictures. I doubt any of this is peer reviewed. Is it? If not, its mere speculation and the issue it moot.

Ad hominem the attacks may be, but that just points to credibility, which is admissible.

No it's not. "person X is an idiot, so all his hypotheses must be wrong" does not make any logical sense. The only way to dismiss person X's hypothesis is by discussing the hypothesis, not the hypothesisor (if that a word!?). An ad hom has no place in any debate. For example, you will never here me say "you are not a palaeontologist so your points are not valid", not only is it insulting, but our credentials are completely irrelevant. And so are Horners.

Just because the scientists of the day have reached a consensus doesn't mean the consensus is correct. I'm sure all astronomers thought the Earth was the centre of the universe until Copernicus showed otherwise.

yep, I'm willing to change my view as the evidence comes in. This is not a dogma. Again, your flat earth example only goes to show that science works, it is self-correcting.

I think it is far more 'romantic' (whatever the term implies) to believe that the birds singing outside are dinosaurs than to say brontosaurs are reptiles.

replace 'romantic' with 'nostalgic'. I think you know what I mean

And the use of the term 'apatosaurus' in referring the brontosaur, far from being an instance of the rigorousness of nomenclature, is actually an instance of inconsistency and pedantry. By this logic, megalosaurus should be called "Scrotum humanum", and microraptor should be called 'archaeoraptor', since it formed one-half of archaeoraptor. And what is going on with anatotitan, whose name has changed several times within my lifetime?

Again, we shouldn't get side tracked, suffice to say that The ICZN (code of nomenclature) has strict rules (yes, pedantic rules if you must), and they get complicated, but they have been followed in all of the examples you give.
-Scrotum humanum is non-diagnostic and therefore insufficient as a type.
-I'm not sure about Microraptor, but I presume the piece from Archaeoraptor is not diagnostic to species level. As i say, the ICZN is pedantic.

There's greater odds of finding a Loch Ness monster than discovering a feathered 'dinosaur' outside of China

time will tell. tick tock tick tock... ;D

;D Scipionyx and juravenator are the closest candidates found outside China for the preservation of feathers, had dinosaurs had feathers, yet they not only show no signs of fuzz, despite their close relations to the Chinese "fuzzy" [sic] dinosaurs, juravanetor actually has scales. But this has not stopped scientists from proclaiming juravenator must have had feathers and artists from portraying them with feathers! Some juravenator figures I've seen have more feathers than scales! Who now is ignoring scientific evidence?

Lets forget the fuzz, as you say, it's controversial.
What about the quill knobs on Velociraptor arms, what do you make of them?

[itstwentybelow]

Wow. Now piltdown, let me get this straight, you actually don't think that feathered dinosaurs ever existed, and that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs? There are too many flaws with the points you've come up with to make a viable argument anyway.

Firstly, yes it is clear that Archaeopteryx did not evolve from Velociraptor, or any Cretaceous dinosaur for that matter because it existed during the Jurassic. But this certainly isn't evidence against a dinosaur-bird link. This makes it clear that Archaeopteryx and dromeaosaurids evolved from a common ancestor, much the same way hominids and the great apes did, which is why there are still apes living today.

You're trying to make it seem like the fossil evidence from China is all a hoax? Why would that be? It's clear that these dinosaurs died and were subsequently fossilized in an environment that was perfect for fossilization, much like the famous specimen of Archaeopteryx, but I think the best example of another formation which yields fossils of unparalleled preservation is the Burgess Shale in Alberta, Canada. No where else in the world has such highly preserved Cambrian marine life, so that must be a hoax, too, huh? These are just instances of the conditions having been exceptional for fossilization. Another example of this is the "Dakota" mummy, which I believe to be the most significant dinosaur discovery in history.

It just seems like for some reason, you hate the concept of feathered dinosaurs. I didn't like them as much when I was a little kid, but it all makes so much sense in evolutionary terms.
I also notice that you use the term "brontosaurus" a lot, but you do know that brontosaurus was nothing more than an Apatosaurus skeleton mounted with the head of a Camarasaurus, right?

[piltdown]

What about the quill knobs on Velociraptor arms, what do you make of them?

Artefacts of preservation at best; at worst, fraud. Unless one want to argue velociraptor soared through the skies like a turkey vulture, which IIRC is what the authors of the study compared the ulna to

But this certainly isn't evidence against a dinosaur-bird link. This makes it clear that Archaeopteryx and dromeaosaurids evolved from a common ancestor

No one has seriously doubted that birds and dinosaurs and crocodiles are related since the days of Darwin and Huxley. What is being contested is that modern birds (whatever 'modern' implies) are derived directly from the dromeosaurs. Of this contention there is no proof except some superficial similarities between birds and deinonychus, which are easily explained by parallelophyly, and the fraudulent "fuzzy" dinos of Liaoning.

Burgess Shale in Alberta, Canada. No where else in the world has such highly preserved Cambrian marine life, so that must be a hoax, too, huh? These are just instances of the conditions having been exceptional for fossilization.

True. But as far as I know, there is no cottage industry of "farmers" in BC plucking away at the remains, reassembling the pieces like jigsaw puzzles to make the specimens more marketable, and reselling them on eBay and the black market.

In fact, just a few years ago there was a fossil of Microraptor gui (curiously, no feathers--hmm... ) on eBay for $6,000. The sale of any Chinese fossil is illegal, but because of the corruption of the Chinese government they show up everywhere.

Scientists have studied the fossils, they just didn't provide interpretations (I admit that's what they are), or conclusions you want to hear.

It is more accurate to say that scientists are shoehorning the 'discoveries' of Liaoning into the prevalent bird-dino paradigm, even when the evidence says otherwise.

The response of the orthodoxy (and Bakker might conduct himself as an enfant terrible at 60, but he and his peers are the orthodoxy, and if that is an ad hominem attack so be it--it's not as if Horner and company hadn't already dismissed the doubters of the bird-dino theory by proclaiming them believers in the Flat Earth theory) to juravenator is an example of how not to conduct science. No feathers on juravenator--but in terms of classification it must have feathers, the poor fossil itself notwithstanding. So they say well, it was a juvenile, so it may not have feathers (just as they explain away the scales of adult dinosaurs by saying they must have had feathers when they were hatchlings!); that it regularly shed its feathers by moulting (I would like anyone to point out a scaly chicken after it is plucked); that it did have feathers, but they were not preserved (but the scales were?). Now the latest gambit is to throw juravenator out of the coelurosauria! What happened to the principle of parsimony?

As for the ICZN rules, well, I don't think anyone has the nerve to replace Tyrannosaurus rex with Manospondylus gigas ;D They got away with that folly with Brontosaurus because it was just a vegetarian dinosaur, but no one tampers with t-rex with impunity ;D

I doubt any of this is peer reviewed. Is it? If not, its mere speculation and the issue it moot.
I agree; however, this concept was not followed by Phil Currie, Stephen Czerkas, Christopher Sloan, National Geographic, et al. in the archaeoraptor fiasco. And National Geographic has NOT learnt its lesson--the 'Dakota' hadrosaurus specimen, although featured in a NG special and two books, has similarly NOT been peer reviewed. Even Horner of all people is griping.

And how about those infamous tyrannosaur proteins? No peer reviewed studies either before they went to the media with their findings. Of course, when it WAS peer reviewed and the scientists concluded that the "proteins" were not conclusive of anything--in fact, the "proteins" show that t-rex is more closely related to salamanders than to birds, according to the peer reviewed 'findings', which is of course preposterous. But how did Schweitzer, Horner, et al react? The rejiggered the letters of the protein sequences to make them fit their dino-bird hypothesis! Is that SCIENCE? The media did not breathe a word of it, although they went ga-ga over the "organic" "tyrannosaur" "tissue" when it was first announced, and Dr. Schweitzer entered the pantheon with Mother Teresa and the Deified Augustus.

[EmperorDinobot]

You've downsized yourself to a ramble, Piltdown. But you make a good point.


However...

It's incorrect to imply that birds are derived from dromies. Dromies are true dinosaurs with lots of similarities to avians. Parallel evolution. Their common ancestor (avetheropoda) is probably some sort of late Triassic-early to middle Jurassic coelurosaur. It just hasn't been found. (Protoavis texensis anyone?)
To me, birds are birds, and dinosaurs are dinosaurs. Birds aren't dinosaurs, they are evolved from them, but there are dinosaurs who did conduct themselves like birds and even looked like birds. But by the time Microraptor, Archaeoraptor, or any "raptor" lived, birds already existed. True birds. Anything forward from Archaeopterygidae.
As for the feather thing, I'm starting to think it's a genus specific thing. Juravenator showed no signs of feathers, nor did Compsognathus, but Sinornithosaurus did. Just 'coz they're in the same family doesn't mean anything, and Sinornithosaurus lived much later than Compsognathus did, which is the time when dinosaurs started evolving feathers to match their avian counterparts, but evolved them for insulation purposes (Those whose lithos have integumentary material on them). These dinosaurs with feathery integument are ALL Cretaceous dinosaurs who shared their lives with other birds. They evolved integument for insulation purposes (birds did at the beginning, but to escape their carnivorous cousins, they evolved flight.)
They're only found in China so far because that's where all the expeditions take place, and because they were full of lush, fertile land that allowed massive fossilizations of every organism to be possible. In time, they'll be found elsewhere, but you gotta look in Cretaceous rocks.

Anyone who says birds came from dromies(raptors) is wrong. They both came from a common ancestor, and parallel each other in many things, but birds aren't dromies. They're all coelurosaurians that evolved in the LTr-LJ. Dromies only appeared later on.

[Dinotoyforum]

Artefacts of preservation at best; at worst, fraud. Unless one want to argue velociraptor soared through the skies like a turkey vulture, which IIRC is what the authors of the study compared the ulna to

So you are denying this evidence. Are you sure that these quill nobs are not, in fact, quill knobs? This is science in action again, this fits with the predictions of the dino-bird scenario.

No one has seriously doubted that birds and dinosaurs and crocodiles are related since the days of Darwin and Huxley. What is being contested is that modern birds (whatever 'modern' implies) are derived directly from the dromeosaurs.

I don't think so - what is being contested is weather dromaeosaurs had feathers or not. This is a subtly separate issue, it's concerns the sharing of close common ancestors, not the postulation of direct ancestor-descendent links.

Of this contention there is no proof except some superficial similarities between birds and deinonychus, which are easily explained by parallelophyly

Do you mean convergence?

I think you are underestimating the 'superficial similarities'. What is the alternative explanation for the origin of birds, and does the evidence for that hypothesis outweigh the evidence for a close relationship between dinosaurs and birds?

and the fraudulent "fuzzy" dinos of Liaoning.

You have still not provided any evidence to dismiss every fossil coming out of China. It has been demonsrated that we can identify the composites. 'Archaeoraptor' was a blunder, rushed into the press before thorough investigation. These dino-bird fossils are now the most scrutinized fossils in the world.

True. But as far as I know, there is no cottage industry of "farmers" in BC plucking away at the remains, reassembling the pieces like jigsaw puzzles to make the specimens more marketable, and reselling them on eBay and the black market.

If there was such an industry, there would still be no reason to reject every fossil from these deposits as a hoax. There are composites and hoaxes coming from all major deposits of the world. Morocco, for example, produces composite mosasaurs. Should we dismiss all fossils from Morocco because of this?

It is more accurate to say that scientists are shoehorning the 'discoveries' of Liaoning into the prevalent bird-dino paradigm, even when the evidence says otherwise.

shoehorning? The discoveries simply match the predictions. Exactly what one would expect if the hypothesis was correct. There may be some evidence saying otherwise - does it seriously outweigh the evidence for the current 'paradigm' (read - consensus)?

The response of the orthodoxy (and Bakker might conduct himself as an enfant terrible at 60, but he and his peers are the orthodoxy, and if that is an ad hominem attack so be it--it's not as if Horner and company hadn't already dismissed the doubters of the bird-dino theory by proclaiming them believers in the Flat Earth theory) to juravenator is an example of how not to conduct science. No feathers on juravenator--but in terms of classification it must have feathers, the poor fossil itself notwithstanding. So they say well, it was a juvenile, so it may not have feathers (just as they explain away the scales of adult dinosaurs by saying they must have had feathers when they were hatchlings!); that it regularly shed its feathers by moulting (I would like anyone to point out a scaly chicken after it is plucked); that it did have feathers, but they were not preserved (but the scales were?). Now the latest gambit is to throw juravenator out of the coelurosauria! What happened to the principle of parsimony?


I'm reading up on Juravenator - I'll get back to you.

As for the ICZN rules, well, I don't think anyone has the nerve to replace Tyrannosaurus rex with Manospondylus gigas They got away with that folly with Brontosaurus because it was just a vegetarian dinosaur, but no one tampers with t-rex with impunity.

umm. I don't have any details on the taxonomic history of Manospondylus, so I can't comment, other than that if they broke the rules by calling Mano, T.rex, then they broke the rules. *Edit* I just had a quick investigation of this topic, it seems that according to the ICZN, there was no case to change Mano to T.rex - so it was nothing to do with 'nerves'.

[tiermann]

Um, hi
New and am not really that deeply into the subject but...
I was at the Dinosaurs of China exhibit at OMSI in Portland Oregon last month and took lots of pictures.
You can find them in my Flickr set here
The fossils the tags said were "genuine" are marked as such in my description field. The show is a mix of fossils, casts, and animatronic displays.
Their Microraptor was a cast and is here: Microraptor

[EmperorDinobot]

I went to that expo when I was in Canada 3 years ago. Lovely pics, great reference material! thanks!

[Dimetrodon]

Did anyone see the special on PBS' Nova about Microraptor? They had two sets of teams that both re-created the dinosaur in different ways to try to figure out why it had wings on it's back legs and how it used them. Check out the webpage here, it was really great!

www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/microraptor/

[EmperorDinobot]

I saw that. A nice show. In the end they re-iterated that aves really is at the base of coelurosauria.

[richard]

This thing of the feathered dinosaurs seems a hoax to me. Besides we don't have to ignore chineses' reputation Now, seriously, there may be prooves of feathered dinosaurs, but, puting them even on tyrannosaurs, that's a sin, not to us who don't like feathered dinosaurs, but to science.

[dinowight]

Mar 14, 2008 2:23:44 GMT richard said:

This thing of the feathered dinosaurs seems a hoax to me. Besides we don't have to ignore chineses' reputation Now, seriously, there may be prooves of feathered dinosaurs, but, puting them even on tyrannosaurs, that's a sin, not to us who don't like feathered dinosaurs, but to science.

Why? If they fit into a phylogenetic bracket where feathers are found before and after they appeared, then the likelihood that they had feathers also is quite great.

Of do you mean that it simply won't look right, and aesthetics are more important than being accurate?

[Dinotoyforum]

The problem is if those feathered animals more basal to Tyrannosaurus turn out to misinterpretations or hoaxes, which is the main claim here. Then the bracket would shift.

[crazycrowman]

I believe skin impressions from a rex have been found, so at least some parts of the animal, or the adult animals, were not, or at least minimally feathered.

<img src="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19302/19302-h/images/fig031.jpg">
On various dinosaur "mummy's" (quite a misleading term) skin impressions have been found, and it appears the skin on those animals was primarily scaled. (above, "Trachodon annectens" - a Hadrosaurid)

The only dinosaurs that we "know" had feathers so far have been coelurosaurs. This link below has the most up to date supertree.
palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/dinosaur/supertree.html

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathered_dinosaurs
This is a very general and quick/sloppy run through about feathers and dinosaurs, but it explains Lou Rey's depiction of Ceratopsiods with "feather like structures". I myself have no firm feelings on that until more specimens surface/further advanced study has taken.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070920145402.htm
Trying to "deny" that there were feathered dinosaurs is simply absurd, and in the same boat with the folks who insist the earth is flat. Extensive study on the specimens found has taken place, and the fossil feathers of Shuvuuia specimens even tested positive for beta-keratin, the main protein in bird feathers, in immunological studies.

Despite all the people who would hope that dinosaurs remain "separate" from birds because they have a misunderstanding, or a dist ate for birds, (I constantly hear the chicken/duck comparisons, and for some reason people seem to selectively forget about creatures like the Harpy Eagle and the Hassts Eagle.) Birds one of the most socially dynamic and the most aggressive vertebrate animals on the planet. I have a feeling they would even make velociraptor proud.

The issue of distinction, over "whats a dinosaur, and whats a bird", is silly. Velociraptors and such did not evolve "into" birds, they evolved alongside other birds.....or is that...other maniraptoria ? :>

[sepp]

^^
when I was in Alberta at the Royal Tyrell Museum, they had a sample of fossilized carnotaurus skin and it was very rough and bumpy. I've heard theories of the bigger theropods having feathers, but I honestly can't bring myself to believe that. I have a hard enough time remembering that the dromaeosaurs had feathers, supposedly.



the "dinosaurs of china" exhibit is on display right now at the oregon museum of science and industry, and they had a genuine microraptor fossil with feather imprints. it did look quite convincing.
the rest of the skeletal molds were pretty cool too, though all of the skulls were crushed and they were poorly constructed. for heaven's sake, they put the sickle claw on their velociraptor's MIDDLE toe, one toe out from where it should be. I was a little offended. not to mention the horrible animatronic dinosaurs whos skin wobbled when they moved.

anyway, to go even further off the subject, I do know that at least one of you guys on this board lives in oregon too, so although there are some mistakes in the exhibit, it's definitely worth a see if you can make it down to OMSI.