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Post by EmperorDinobot on Sept 16, 2011 1:59:43 GMT
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Post by sbell on Sept 16, 2011 2:34:57 GMT
I did see that--remember when even the mention of such an article set off a firestorm of debate?! Man, I've been here a long time. As have you. |
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Post by EmperorDinobot on Sept 16, 2011 2:42:08 GMT
Then how come I was not aware of these findings?! God I have been out of paleo for a looong time if this is true.
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Post by itstwentybelow on Sept 16, 2011 3:34:32 GMT
Wow! This is incredible. This is what it's all about. Can't wait to hear more! I wonder if it will be possible to match any of the feathers to known genera? Possibly Troodon?
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Post by EmperorDinobot on Sept 16, 2011 6:45:56 GMT
It's possible with more discoveries like these you COULD be able match them once more discoveries are made, but I see that as highly unlikely. Pristine fossils are hard to come by. How do we know what Troodon feathers really looked like? I don't think a single troodon has been found. Other troodontids, sure, but Troodon itself? How about Hesperornis?
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Post by zopteryx on Sept 16, 2011 21:17:42 GMT
You're right. We need to find some feather-containing amber in a place like China, where we have a better idea of what the feathers of dinos and ancient birds looked like.
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Post by Seijun on Sept 17, 2011 5:39:35 GMT
My friend at work told me today "Scientists have discovered that dinosaurs had feathers! They found dinosaur feathers in amber." ;D
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weaver
Full Member
Icon by the great Djinni!
Posts: 156
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Post by weaver on Sept 30, 2011 9:22:39 GMT
Wait what? How cool! Gee, I wonder if the pigments of the feathers could be extracted and compared to modern birds... I wonder what colors the feathers would be without being in amber.
So cool!
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Post by bowheadwhale on Sept 30, 2011 19:00:20 GMT
What an extraordinary matter amber is! It can preserve anything. Long live conifers!
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Post by dinoguy2 on Oct 2, 2011 12:30:55 GMT
It's possible with more discoveries like these you COULD be able match them once more discoveries are made, but I see that as highly unlikely. Pristine fossils are hard to come by. How do we know what Troodon feathers really looked like? I don't think a single troodon has been found. Other troodontids, sure, but Troodon itself? How about Hesperornis? Some of the feathers have microstructures that help feathers absorb water, a feature found only in aquatic diving birds that need to lose bouncy. Given the place and time period I think it's very likely some of these come from Hesperornis or a related genus. The interesting thing is that such feathers are IN AMBER! What are hesperornithines doing in a tree? Coincidentally, the same day a paper was published which mentioned finding hesperornithine foot bones adapted for perching. Therefore there must have been some species around still capable of flight, and the feathers probably come from those! |
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Post by stoneage on Feb 18, 2012 16:09:20 GMT
It's possible with more discoveries like these you COULD be able match them once more discoveries are made, but I see that as highly unlikely. Pristine fossils are hard to come by. How do we know what Troodon feathers really looked like? I don't think a single troodon has been found. Other troodontids, sure, but Troodon itself? How about Hesperornis? Some of the feathers have microstructures that help feathers absorb water, a feature found only in aquatic diving birds that need to lose bouncy. Given the place and time period I think it's very likely some of these come from Hesperornis or a related genus. The interesting thing is that such feathers are IN AMBER! What are hesperornithines doing in a tree? Coincidentally, the same day a paper was published which mentioned finding hesperornithine foot bones adapted for perching. Therefore there must have been some species around still capable of flight, and the feathers probably come from those! Seems your feathers are just seed fibers. www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6070/796.2.full |
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Post by Blade-of-the-Moon on Feb 19, 2012 0:37:51 GMT
Read a story once..a guy finds a tiny claw with flesh attached to it in amber. Of course he's so excited he removes it and accidentally pricks his hand on the claw. Few days later his fingernails rot off and he dies. Turns out the claw belonged to a sick dinosaur and the disease it carried it what killed them off. No one figured it out and mankind goes extinct.
Funny eh ?
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Post by dinoguy2 on Feb 19, 2012 1:12:55 GMT
Some of the feathers have microstructures that help feathers absorb water, a feature found only in aquatic diving birds that need to lose bouncy. Given the place and time period I think it's very likely some of these come from Hesperornis or a related genus. The interesting thing is that such feathers are IN AMBER! What are hesperornithines doing in a tree? Coincidentally, the same day a paper was published which mentioned finding hesperornithine foot bones adapted for perching. Therefore there must have been some species around still capable of flight, and the feathers probably come from those! Seems your feathers are just seed fibers. www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6070/796.2.fullThe critique in that article is only regarding the supposed "protofeather" filaments (which, by the way, probably don't exist even in Sinosauropteryx, which had actual down feathers, not "protofeathers"). The hesperornithine-like feathers are pretty obviously feathers with a central shaft, barbs an barbules. No mistaking those for seed fibers. |
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Post by arioch on Feb 19, 2012 2:57:20 GMT
Haha !  |
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Post by stoneage on Feb 19, 2012 4:22:18 GMT
The critique in that article is only regarding the supposed "protofeather" filaments (which, by the way, probably don't exist even in Sinosauropteryx, which had actual down feathers, not "protofeathers"). The hesperornithine-like feathers are pretty obviously feathers with a central shaft, barbs an barbules. No mistaking those for seed fibers. Well out of 4,000 amber specimens I believe there are only 11 specimens of supposive bird feathers. Some of which were suppose to be proto-feathers. which is funny since Archeopteryx who lived 150 million years ago had relatively modern feathers and these specimens are only 85 to 70 million years old. Protofeathers aren't known from any existing modern birds. Also these specimens are very small, all under an inch, or 2 1/2 centimeters. Why jump to the conclusion that these are dinosaur feathers at all. All we can do is see a shape through the amber. As I understand it no chemical analysis has been done. Claiming these are dinosaur feathers is just a hopeful assumption, which cannot be proved at all. In fact the discoverers themselves admitted "There is currently no way to refer to feathers found in amber with certainty to either birds, or the rare small theropods from the area." Remember during the Late Cretaceous true birds were already around. Co-Author Phil Currie says that Scientist tend to see what they want to see. The best scientific method is to question all theories. |
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Post by simon on Feb 19, 2012 6:07:22 GMT
Well out of 4,000 amber specimens I believe there are only 11 specimens of supposive bird feathers. Some of which were suppose to be proto-feathers. which is funny since Archeopteryx who lived 150 million years ago had relatively modern feathers and these specimens are only 85 to 70 million years old. Protofeathers aren't known from any existing modern birds. Also these specimens are very small, all under an inch, or 2 1/2 centimeters. Why jump to the conclusion that these are dinosaur feathers at all. All we can do is see a shape through the amber. As I understand it no chemical analysis has been done. Claiming these are dinosaur feathers is just a hopeful assumption, which cannot be proved at all. In fact the discoverers themselves admitted "There is currently no way to refer to feathers found in amber with certainty to either birds, or the rare small theropods from the area." Remember during the Late Cretaceous true birds were already around. Co-Author Phil Currie says that Scientist tend to see what they want to see. The best scientific method is to question all theories. I couldn't have put it any better myself ;D Everybody, and I do mean everybody, should be wary of these discoveries that are announced with fanfare & hyperbole. More often than not, when the specimens are actually studied they are often not what they were cracked up to be. For example, Willo's "heart" & the size exaggerations of Peck's Rex, to name a few... "Willo's heart" contains complex structures visible via C-scan which just happen to approximate the known structures of a heart. And its in exactly the right spot in the middle of the chest. If its a "mud accretion", its an amazingly fortuitously placed one, not to mention sculpted by natural forces with such delicacy that all those (false) details are present, though they have never been seen in other mud accretions. Skepticism is fine, and I frankly take little interest in the feathers debate, but Occam's Razor says that Willo has a heart. ;D |
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Post by simon on Feb 19, 2012 8:39:05 GMT
"Willo's heart" contains complex structures visible via C-scan which just happen to approximate the known structures of a heart. And its in exactly the right spot in the middle of the chest. If its a "mud accretion", its an amazingly fortuitously placed one, not to mention sculpted by natural forces with such delicacy that all those (false) details are present, though they have never been seen in other mud accretions. Skepticism is fine, and I frankly take little interest in the feathers debate, but Occam's Razor says that Willo has a heart. ;D Occam's razor notwithstanding, if something sounds to good to be true, it probably is. More recent CT scans reveal no such similarity to a heart & that it is indeed a lump of rock. I have no dog in the heart fight, just like your position on feathers. I used Willow as an example: Be wary of hype, that's all.. In other words, just like looking at clouds, we often see what we wish to see... do you have a link to a discussion of Willo's heart being a lump o' stone? I'd like to read it.... |
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Post by dinoguy2 on Feb 19, 2012 14:31:49 GMT
Why jump to the conclusion that these are dinosaur feathers at all. All we can do is see a shape through the amber. As I understand it no chemical analysis has been done. Claiming these are dinosaur feathers is just a hopeful assumption, which cannot be proved at all. All feathers are dinosaur feathers... I'm not sure how chemical analysis would help. Dinosaur feathers are identical to modern bird feathers, so it would be impossible to tell either way. There's no such thing as a "protofeather" (at least no such thing has yet been found in any fossils, except *maybe* ornithischian quills). |
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Post by stoneage on Feb 19, 2012 20:26:18 GMT
Why jump to the conclusion that these are dinosaur feathers at all. All we can do is see a shape through the amber. As I understand it no chemical analysis has been done. Claiming these are dinosaur feathers is just a hopeful assumption, which cannot be proved at all. All feathers are dinosaur feathers... I'm not sure how chemical analysis would help. Dinosaur feathers are identical to modern bird feathers, so it would be impossible to tell either way. There's no such thing as a "protofeather" (at least no such thing has yet been found in any fossils, except *maybe* ornithischian quills). So there is no such thing as bird feathers except maybe ornithischian quills. What about the the Hererodontosaur, Tianyulong? Storys about proto-feathers abound in all sorts of scientic studys. Even among Dinosaurs supposively not related to Dinosaurs. What about Beipiaosaurus and Dilong paradoxus, aren't they suppose to have fossil impressions of proto-feathers. www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2008/01/11/dino_skin_shows_no_trace_of_protofeatherMcKellor says the specimens are not expected to contain DNA. McKellor "We don't know absolutely what they are, but we're pretty sure what they're not. They could be protofeathers." I don't think they know what they've got. They also claim this is the full story, that demonstrates the progression of feather structure, although no fossils of birds or dinosaurs were found nearby. Thomas Holtz said, "The New Canadian Fossils do show a diversity of primitive and advanced feather stages, and is quite likely that at least some of these were shed from non-bird dinosaurs," he said, "but at present it is difficult to assign particular feathers to particular dinosaurs. So isn't he saying (non-bird dinosaurs) that non birds also have feathers. Richard Plum, an evolutionary ornithologist at Yale university says Mckellar and his colleagues," present an exciting and broad sample of feathers,'. Although the evidence suggest that filamentary structures are protofeathers, he note, the lack of any other remains in the amber-a distinctive bit of bone, say, or a shred of skin-leaves open the possibility the structures aren't associated with dinosaurs at all. Indeed, he says, they could be something completely new that hasn't been preserved elsewhere in the fossil record. I really don't feel they're really sure what this means. Professor Xu says Archaeopteryx and Xiaotingis are not birds but feathery dinosaurs. Therefore dinosaurs with feathers are not birds. www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14307985 |
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Post by dinoguy2 on Feb 19, 2012 20:37:29 GMT
All feathers are dinosaur feathers... I'm not sure how chemical analysis would help. Dinosaur feathers are identical to modern bird feathers, so it would be impossible to tell either way. There's no such thing as a "protofeather" (at least no such thing has yet been found in any fossils, except *maybe* ornithischian quills). So there is no such thing as bird feathers except maybe ornithischian quills. What about the the Hererodontosaur, Tianyulong? Storys about proto-feathers abound in all sorts of scientic studys. Even among Dinosaurs supposively not related to Dinosaurs. What about Beipiaosaurus and Dilong paradoxus, aren't they suppose to have fossil impressions of proto-feathers. The quills of heterodontosaurs and psittacosaurs may or may not be related to feathers. If they are, they may count as genuine protofeathers. References to "protofeathers" are based on fossils which are severely crushed. This study showed that if you flatten even a modern bird, its feathers look like "protofeathers": www.springerlink.com/content/u71014417j3214j0/The flattening makes the filaments on either side of the feather quill all blur together, and appear to be independent. This study showed that the "protofeathers" of Sinosauropteryx are identical to chick down, but were misinterpreted because they were so small and squished together. But on close examination, both barbs and quills can be seen and probably make up individual, complex feathers: www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/e01-050The EBFF feathers of Beipiaosaurus and an undescribed tyrannosaur are interesting, because they're more quill-like with no barbs or filaments branching. However they're not like regular feather quills because they're broad and flat (certainly nothing like the ones reported in the amber). They might be protofeathers, or highly modified normal feathers. If they are protofeathers, note that they're absolutely nothing like the short, fuzzy supposed protofeathers of Dilong etc. (which are probably similar to normal downy feathers). So, there's no solid evidence any theropods had protofeathers. Most of them had ACTUAL feathers identical to the kind found in modern birds. It's possible protofeathers were a feature of primitive dinosaurs, and they evolved into true feathers among tetanurans or something. But we have no evidence of those yet. |
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