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Evidence Dinosaurs Are Like Giant Chicks
ZeroExistenZ writes "timesonline reports the new "irrefutable" fossil evidence of dino's resembling "giant chicks" more then reptiles as formerly accepted. Gareth Dyke: "The way these creatures are depicted can no longer be considered scientifically accurate," he said. "All the evidence is that they looked more like birds than reptiles. Tyrannosaurs might have resembled giant chicks.""
.. but once I started thinking about it it made a bit more sense in evolutionary terms.
Scales! If dinosaurs evolved slowly from fish, why would the scales simply disappear without evolution even trying to figure out another use for them? It's not a gigantic logical leap to move from the idea of scales to the idea of feathers, they're both overlapping 'plates' attached at a single point, the only difference is the fine structure involved which may have started simply as land walking fish who's scales didn't hold together very well, leaving ribbons of scale that were at once more flexible and slightly more insulative.
Brilliant! *beer time*
bend like the reed
...on the "Fry Hard 2" episode of Good Eats.
He used one of these, minus skull, tail and the bottom half of the legs, to demonstrate the proper way to dismantle a whole chicken for frying.
~Philly
This one at the BBC discusses the find in more depth and also mentions that the feathers were primarily on smaller dinosaurs, but even our beloved T-Rex may have hatched cute li'l chicks.
And this American Museum of Natural History article discusses a diorama they're putting up based on the find, including pictures of their conceptions of the dinosaurs today.
Really, submitter could have contributed a lot more information with a little basic research.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
reporting the obvious
Oh, well, now, I wouldn't say that.
This article is from February 2003. The guy is an evolutionary biologist, but search for the word 'factory' and notice where this factory is rumored to exist. You guessed it, Liaoning Province.
Very interesting read.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Dinosaurs have been depicted as bird-like for at least the last 20 years. Even since the 90s, Jurassic Park (the original anyway) tapped noted palentologists to give the dinosaurs what was then a contemporary view of them - fast, warm blooded, very bird like. Many contemporary depictions of dinosaurs have them behaving in a birdlike manner or looking like birds (to the point of having rudimentary or even full fledged feathers).
/. report is not about the general anatomical similarities between preditory dinosaurs and birds which is well documented. It is about the debait about the extent to which predatory diosaurs were feathered which has been debated. AFAIK (In no paleontologist my knowledge of these matter comes largely from documentaries and science journals) it has until now been assumed that feathering was limited to a numer of smaller raptor species. If it is indeed true that irrefutable evidence has been found that even the largest flesh eating dinosaurs such as T.Rex, Allosaurus etc... were feathered that is indeed news. I was not aware that this has been common knowledge for the last 20 years. I for one look forward to seeing that proto-T.Rex fossil, has anybody seen images of this specimen?
True enough but the story cited in the
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
A would consider a t-rex chasing a jeep at 35 miles an hour going pretty fast especialy since it was an actualy chase rather than like a croc's or an alligator putting on a quick short burst to take down prey.
I've often suspected that the dinosaurs, especialy theropods were actualy a lot more colorful the we imagined, most birds are far form dull as are most snakes. Even in present day mammils preditor tend to be more colorfull than expected and their prey less so.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
This doesn't quite make sense.
Once feathers evolved, it would be only a short time before their lifting qualities would enable the evolution of high-jumping then gliding then flying dinosaurs.
There should be a huge number of fossils of a huge number of species of dinosaur-era birdlike creatures. But we only see a few.
So these "feathers" couldn't have been very much like what we think of as feathers.
Or else something about being avian kept those creatures from becoming fossils. Which implies that there may be other entire swaths of the genetic diversity that were prevented from becoming fossils. Which mean the dinosaurs we're finding are only the animals that couldn't avoid the tar-pits and eruptions and mudslides. That is, the period may have been many times more diverse and interesting than we're being allowed to see.
"Giant Chick overlords"
Think Drumsticks!
Mmmmm... Drumsticks!
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
It sounds like we need to submit a new bug: Icon needs to look more chicken-like. ;-)