Sturgeon Posted August 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted August 28, 2016 Darren Naish explains how brilliant the Crystal Palace really was: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/the-dinosaurs-of-crystal-palace-among-the-most-accurate-renditions-of-prehistoric-life-ever-made/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donward Posted August 29, 2016 Report Share Posted August 29, 2016 That was a great read, particularly the empathy towards early paleontologists who were doing the best they could. Sturgeon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Priory_of_Sion Posted December 9, 2016 Report Share Posted December 9, 2016 A feathery tail preserved in amber Sturgeon, Belesarius and LoooSeR 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Priory_of_Sion Posted December 9, 2016 Report Share Posted December 9, 2016 A feathery tail preserved in amber Also look at that ant. 99 mya was about the time when ants first evolved so that's also cool to see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted December 9, 2016 Author Report Share Posted December 9, 2016 So the two guys who still believe dinosaurs didn't have feathers must be pretty buttmad right about now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donward Posted December 9, 2016 Report Share Posted December 9, 2016 I still want to believe. Sturgeon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect Posted December 9, 2016 Report Share Posted December 9, 2016 I am willing to postulate that some did and some didn't. It's not a black or white case. Very cool find, though. Something straight out of the movies. Maybe they can start cloning them now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collimatrix Posted December 9, 2016 Report Share Posted December 9, 2016 I am willing to postulate that some did and some didn't. It's not a black or white case. Very cool find, though. Something straight out of the movies. Maybe they can start cloning them now. It's pretty black and white. Sturgeon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donward Posted December 10, 2016 Report Share Posted December 10, 2016 Relevant. http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/dinosaurs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect Posted December 10, 2016 Report Share Posted December 10, 2016 It's pretty black and white. The extent of plumage per species most likely varied heavily due to external factors, though. When I say "no feathers", I'm not saying they didn't have anything at all on their skin. Just there was a large degree of variance depending on environmental factors. But it still would not surprise me of some specie's didn't have feathers at all, or to the point you couldn't call them feathers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostCosmonaut Posted December 13, 2016 Report Share Posted December 13, 2016 Speaking of feathered dinosaurs; https://i.imgur.com/s05awRy.gifv Sturgeon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted December 13, 2016 Author Report Share Posted December 13, 2016 The extent of plumage per species most likely varied heavily due to external factors, though. When I say "no feathers", I'm not saying they didn't have anything at all on their skin. Just there was a large degree of variance depending on environmental factors. But it still would not surprise me of some specie's didn't have feathers at all, or to the point you couldn't call them feathers. I would expect to see distributions of feathers and feather-like structures in avemetatarsalia that are more extensive than fur is in mammals. The reason for this is there are no ave.m.t. whale equivalents. I also am hesitant to point to large sauropods and other dinosaurs as being possible low integument species because it's not really clear why elephants, rhinos, and hippos are low integument - at least so far as I know. The reasons for them being low integument might for all we know not at all apply to sauropods and other large dinosaurs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted December 13, 2016 Author Report Share Posted December 13, 2016 Speaking of feathered dinosaurs; https://i.imgur.com/s05awRy.gifv We had a chicken hutch when I was young. I grew up with that shit, which is one of the big reasons I've never had a problem with the "dinosaurs are birds" bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Priory_of_Sion Posted December 14, 2016 Report Share Posted December 14, 2016 Sturgeon, LoooSeR and Donward 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Priory_of_Sion Posted December 23, 2016 Report Share Posted December 23, 2016 Here's a cool paper on dino ontogeny Sturgeon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted January 27, 2017 Report Share Posted January 27, 2017 New Dino tracks site found Northeastern BC. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/a-cross-between-a-hallucinogenic-dream-and-your-worst-nightmare-rare-dinosaur-prints-found-in-b-c-1.3952479 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donward Posted March 5, 2017 Report Share Posted March 5, 2017 Belesarius 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xlucine Posted March 23, 2017 Report Share Posted March 23, 2017 Dammit, I just bought Darren's book https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/ornithoscelida-rises-a-new-family-tree-for-dinosaurs/ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v543/n7646/full/nature21700.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Priory_of_Sion Posted March 23, 2017 Report Share Posted March 23, 2017 3 hours ago, Xlucine said: Dammit, I just bought Darren's book https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/ornithoscelida-rises-a-new-family-tree-for-dinosaurs/ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v543/n7646/full/nature21700.html Ok, so going back to feathers on dinos with this new phylogeny. Would the sauropods + other basal dinos not having feathers make sense now as they aren't in the clade of the feathered theropods and ornithischians? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collimatrix Posted March 23, 2017 Report Share Posted March 23, 2017 8 minutes ago, Priory_of_Sion said: Ok, so going back to feathers on dinos with this new phylogeny. Would the sauropods + other basal dinos not having feathers make sense now as they aren't in the clade of the feathered theropods and ornithischians? It depends on whether ptero fuzz is the same thing as feathers, or parallel evolution. From the Naish article: Quote If sauropodomorphs and herrerasaurs are outside Ornithoscelida, it follows that they lack features common to members of that latter group. Today we know that both ornithischians and theropods (of at least some lineages) possessed hair-like or quill-like integumentary structures, whereas the absence (thus far!) of such structures from sauropodomorphs is slightly suspicious. Ok, that absence may be more to do with the quirks of the fossil record than anything else, but could it be that key events in integumentary evolution occurred in the ornithoscelidan common ancestor, not the dinosaurian one? In other words, might it be that the sauropodomorph + herrerasaur clade never possessed such structures? One good fossil could resolve this, and let’s not forget – as if – that the presence of integumentary fibres in pterosaurs provides support for a fuzzy dinosaurian common ancestor. Priory_of_Sion 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xlucine Posted April 1, 2017 Report Share Posted April 1, 2017 An example of quality science reporting: scientists: "hey, we think tyrannosaurids evolved sequentially with little branching in their family tree. Also, they probably had a sensitive snout" media: "T-REX FUCKS GENTLY" Sturgeon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted May 12, 2017 Report Share Posted May 12, 2017 http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/new-dinosaur-discovered-zuul-1.4105047 New Anklyosaur named 'Destroyer of Shins'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramlaen Posted May 13, 2017 Report Share Posted May 13, 2017 http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/06/dinosaur-nodosaur-fossil-discovery/ Belesarius 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted June 19, 2017 Author Report Share Posted June 19, 2017 Mark Witton on the latest papers which strongly suggest T. rex was entirely scaly: Quote A last interpretation of this new data is that Tyrannosaurus was actually just scaly, with no fibres whatsoever. This is the most contested suggestion made by Bell et al. (2017), but it's not unreasonable with our current knowledge. Existing skin data, representing seven parts of the body if you pool all the distinct skull correlates and postcranial points (add several more if you want to extrapolate scale patches from other tyrants), shows enough scales and consistency in the scalation pattern that uniform scale coverage is not a ridiculous or indefensible concept. I appreciate that some folks will point to regional fuzziness of animals like Kulindadromeus in response, and its sharply defined areas of different integument types, and that's valid point. But we can also point to plenty of dinosaurs with extensive or entirely scaly hides and - if there's any value to linking body size and thermoregulatory regimes - they're a better match to Tyrannosaurus body mass than any known fuzzy species. For the time being, wholly scale models fit our existing data just as reasonably as partly fuzzy ones so, archaic and counter-intuitive as it seems - a scaly Tyrannosaurus is not an unreasonable interpretation for the life appearance of this animal, given our current data. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donward Posted December 10, 2017 Report Share Posted December 10, 2017 BBC has a documentary coming out in January which portrays a realistic "roar" of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/12/09/sinister-sound-tyrannosaurus-rex-heard-first-time-66-million/ It seems to be more of a low rumble. The video clip in the Telegraph article which they chose to share is rather unsatisfying as it just has two people yammering so I guess we have to wait until the episode airs for the good stuff. Also they gave T-Rex a hairdo that looks like Tommy Wiseau for some reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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