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A new fossil suggests 'all dinosaurs' may have had feathers

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H

Heroman

Banned
Sub-Zero at a Starbucks said:
If Brontosaurs had plumage over their necks, they'd basically look like quadrupedal cobras. That's awesome!

Easy way to sort this one out: feathered dinosaur fossils are real. Non-feathered fossils were the illusory ones Satan buried to try and fool us.



Whoaaa. When you actually scale the feathers down, it looks like a carnivorous gorilla. That's some scary shit.
Click to expand...

Brontosaurs is not real.
 
M

MisterGrey3000

Member
Sub-Zero at a Starbucks said:
Whoaaa. When you actually scale the feathers down, it looks like a carnivorous gorilla. That's some scary shit.
Click to expand...

If you like that you should check out John Conway's gallery; I got turned on to him in a paleo-art thread.
His dinosaur art is stunning.

I'm in love with this pterosaur piece:
zhejiangopterus-linhaiensis.jpeg
Click to expand...

Edit:
I wonder why no one complains about pycnofibers (ptero-fuzz) ruining their precious 1950s leathery bat-like pterosaurs. :p
 
T

thelooseteeth

Member
Edgar Allen Poe wrote a sonnet I believe is appropriate:

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!

Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.

Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,

Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?

How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,

Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering

To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,

Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?

Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?

And driven the Hamadryad from the wood

To seek a shelter in some happier star?

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,

The Elfin from the green grass, and from me

The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
 
M

MisterGrey3000

Member
Toa TAK said:
They look almost alien, I love this artist's interpretation here.
Click to expand...


Yeah, they do look rather otherworldly; (barring the atmospheric background) Pterosaurs aren't generally drawn walking towards the viewer or foraging on the ground so it's kind of alien to look at them like that (imo)

Edit: Also, despite being a huge paleo-buff who knows better, the image of these creatures hopping around like tree dwelling birds is still burned into my brain thanks to inaccurate television, film, and video game depictions.
:/
 
U

User 73706

Banned
Seriously though, is nobody else flipping their shit over that feathered Tyrannosaurus? I mean, typical dinosaur depictions were evocative of dragons and had an almost mystical depiction to them - it's difficult to fathom something like that would actually roam the earth.

There's something different about that feathery Tyrannosaurus, though. It doesn't look like a one-dimensional killing machine. It looks like a fully-defined, sentient animal. It's capable of not necessarily intelligent thought, but of emotion and pack-forming instincts. I can somehow empathize with it over reptilian ridges and wrinkles.

And that's fucking terrifying. If we came across some uncharted island where those things still roamed, I wouldn't picture a Jurassic Park dino. I would see one of those.
 
T

Toxi

Banned
Sub-Zero at a Starbucks said:
Seriously though, is nobody else flipping their shit over that feathered Tyrannosaurus? I mean, typical dinosaur depictions were evocative of dragons and had an almost mystical depiction to them - it's difficult to fathom something like that would actually roam the earth.

There's something different about that feathery Tyrannosaurus, though. It doesn't look like a one-dimensional killing machine. It looks like a fully-defined, sentient animal. It's capable of not necessarily intelligent thought, but of emotion and pack-forming instincts. I can somehow empathize with it over reptilian ridges and wrinkles.

And that's fucking terrifying. If we came across some uncharted island where those things still roamed, I wouldn't picture a Jurassic Park dino. I would see one of those.
Click to expand...
I've seen that feathered tyrannosaurus picture before, and I had a similar reaction. It's one of my favorite pieces of dinosaur art. Really communicates a combination of curiosity and cautiousness you see in wild animals.
 
M

MisterGrey3000

Member
Sub-Zero at a Starbucks said:
Seriously though, is nobody else flipping their shit over that feathered Tyrannosaurus? I mean, typical dinosaur depictions were evocative of dragons and had an almost mystical depiction to them - it's difficult to fathom something like that would actually roam the earth.

There's something different about that feathery Tyrannosaurus, though. It doesn't look like a one-dimensional killing machine. It looks like a fully-defined, sentient animal. It's capable of not necessarily intelligent thought, but of emotion and pack-forming instincts. I can somehow empathize with it over reptilian ridges and wrinkles.

And that's fucking terrifying. If we came across some uncharted island where those things still roamed, I wouldn't picture a Jurassic Park dino. I would see one of those.
Click to expand...


It's a really great piece of art, and it's rare to find depictions of a calm Tyrannosaurs Rex looking at the viewer with it's mouth closed.
Also, I think dinosaurs (and many other creatures) start to become a lot more relatable as they become more "mammal-like" (erect limbs, insulation/'fur", warm blooded etc.)

I love scaly scute covered sprawling reptiles as much as the next weirdo, but there is no denying that we often vilify them for their differences. However, we don't do the same to birds (and trust me there are plenty of birds on this planet that could cause a human serious harm or slash our bellies open) and I think it's easy to see why when one starts to realize how many similarities they share with small-medium-large terrestrial mammals like ourselves.
 
A

AniHawk

Member
it honestly makes a lot more sense that dinosaurs had feathers if birds evolved from them. i always thought it was a weird leap to 'suddenly' having feathers and acquiring the ability to fly.
 
H

happypup

Member
MisterGrey3000 said:
Archosaurs most likely developed feathers (or feather-like structures) for insulation and display purposes.
Click to expand...

I never bought that theory. First, you need a bunch of feathers before you can use them for insulation, basically there is this huge gap between function and resource expense. We have hair still but it did not keep for insulation. Now, display seems like a good place to start, but you sort of need the part before it can be altered.

The way I see it the most common reason to have long thin integument features is for extending the sensation of touch. With feelers one can alter their reaction success for both predator and prey interactions. Having just a small number of them, a handful in and around the face, perhaps on limbs or even on the body can increase reaction time by a fraction of a second, A huge advantage in aggregate. From a few to many makes sense and once there are many you can then co-opt the structure for themoregulation and mating ritual.
 
Monocle

Monocle

Member
That's not true because Jurassic Park.

#NotAllDinosaurs #ScientistsWantToRuinYourChildhood #AtheistPropaganda
 
H

happypup

Member
Loofy said:
I cant see how these guys could have feathers.
OlGB0U8.jpg

pCs9ace.jpg
Click to expand...

Your first picture isn't a dinosaur, Dimetrodon is a synapsid, that is, an early ancestor to mammals, if anything they would have hair (though that is unlikely).

As to the second image there is no evidence yet that Sauropods had feathers.
 
V

viciouskillersquirrel

Member
happypup said:
Your first picture isn't a dinosaur, Dimetrodon is a synapsid, that is, an early ancestor to mammals, if anything they would have hair (though that is unlikely).

As to the second image there is no evidence yet that Sauropods had feathers.
Click to expand...
Fun fact: Tyrannosaurus Rex is closer in time to us than to Dimetrodon. In fact, I might be wrong, but as a Triassic dinosaur, Dilophosaurus (frilled poison spitter from Jurassic Park) might be in the same boat. I forget how long into the dinosaurs' 160M year existence the Triassic extinction event was.
 
JordanN

JordanN

Banned
Walking home yesterday, I saw a small bird hopping in the grass. My thought was they look like little dinosaurs.

ixgLpgqbpyIl4.jpg
 
T

TitusGroan

Banned
thelooseteeth said:
Edgar Allen Poe wrote a sonnet I believe is appropriate:

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!

Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.

Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,

Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?

How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,

Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering

To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,

Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?

Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?

And driven the Hamadryad from the wood

To seek a shelter in some happier star?

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,

The Elfin from the green grass, and from me

The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
Click to expand...

Carl Sagan once said " It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it."

If you ask me to choose between the guy who made Cosmos, and the guy who married his 13 year old cousin, I'm going with science everytime...
 
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