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| What annoys you about paleontology?; Rant on about moronic theories, complaints, or just animals that annoy you. | |
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| Topic Started: Sep 28 2013, 05:04 PM (256,463 Views) | |
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Nov 3 2013, 12:59 AM Post #556 |
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Where in my post was that, exactly? I never mentioned Cryo throughout the entire conversation. In fact, who said it DIDN'T have feathers? Of course I think Cryo had feathers! |
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| CyborgIguana | Nov 3 2013, 12:59 AM Post #557 |
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I wouldn't say I hate on scales. Sorry about earlier, I was in a bad mood when I posted the "just about as plausible as a scaly pig" comment. Perhaps this artist may have overdone the floofiness factor a tiny bit, but I just see it as an exaggerated version of the quilled ceratopsians and wouldn't call it "implausible and stupid". And in Hax's defence, Fluffy, I wouldn't call him a JP fanboy. JP fanboys are the idiots that fly into a murderous rage when presented with even a hint of scientific accuracy, while Dr. Hax just seems to have a preference for more conservative reconstructions. At least he does accept that some dinosaurs had feathers, while JP fanboys deny that ANY non-avian dinosaur had an insulatory skin covering of any sort. |
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| Jules | Nov 3 2013, 04:41 AM Post #558 |
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Mihi est imperare orbi universo
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About this reconstruction, I suggest you talk to the artist, Joshua Knuppe I'm sure he will answer. It must be somewhere in this gallery.http://hyrotrioskjan.deviantart.com/ |
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| Okeanos | Nov 3 2013, 05:04 AM Post #559 |
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![]() One thing I've never understood is why people think that a 'half-covering' of feathers like the one above is better than a full coat. Ostriches today have a full coat, save for their legs (and that's because they're sprinters, if I recall correctly) and they don't 'overheat'. It's annoying when people assume Fur = Feathers and that they both have the same properties. Just because the downy feathers look like fur does not mean that it is fur. These 'half-feathers' wouldn't have been much use for anything, to be honest. Feathers trap air, which then creates convection currents and warms up the dinosaur. If it had a thick layer of feathers on top and scales along the sides of its body, then the feathers would be useless because heat would escape quickly from the exposed scales anyway I've never fully understood what's bad about a full coat. I think people assume that because it's a "full-coat" that means it has to be as thick as an Ostrich's coat. That simply isn't true. Just because the feathers are spread all over the body doesn't mean they were thick, it just means they covered more of the skin and this would be far more useful for insulation than the 'half-feathered' depictions. A Tyrannosaurus can be fully feathered without being a fuzzball ![]() (Please note I'm happy to accept the underside of the body would have been scaled, as we've found skin impressions from there) Edited by Okeanos, Nov 3 2013, 06:43 AM.
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| Iben | Nov 3 2013, 07:52 AM Post #560 |
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There'll be no foot-walking! Just air-flying!
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Actually, the "scales" that were found are said to look quite a lot like naked chicken skin. And yet another piece was studied by several palaeontologists and it's said that it was perfectly possible and even likely that that part of skin sported feathers. There are a million possibilities why the feathers didn't preserve on that fossil. A fire, a wound, etc. Second, @MrRabbid, there's actually no body-size vs integument type relationship in modern day animals. I posted a big explanation of that a few pages back, I can quote it if you want. Aside from the fact that elephants are descendants of semi-aquatic animals that lost their fur and that water buffaloes are also semi-aquatic, there's a perfect reasonable, logical and biological reason behind the feather-amount differences in bigger birds. The top speed. Although emus live in a far hotter environment than ostriches do, and still emus have more feathers. Their legs are more feathered than ostriches. This is because their top speed is only 50 kmph, while those of ostriches is 70 kmph. But again, I refer to my older post here in this topic. Third. About this "fluffball" thing. The reason why they're portrayed like that is because of the way that feathers work in modern day birds. Look at how skeletons look and look at how they animals are in real life. There are several good examples. pidgeons,parrots, owls, etc. etc. If you look at how far the actual animals are from their skeletons, you'll be surprised. It has been a trend for years to make sure that artists show the animals as close to the fossils as possible, but they forgot that most animals aren't close to their skeletons at all. This trend was wrong and therefore it's changing. The whole argument of "it isn't logical" is mostly because people lack knowledge to see the logic behind it, rather than there being no logic behind it. |
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| Okeanos | Nov 3 2013, 07:55 AM Post #561 |
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I never knew that Iben in that case disregard that last sentence.
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Nov 3 2013, 05:01 PM Post #562 |
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I'm finally going to give my own analysis on feathers, why they are hated so much in the public eye, what dinosaurs it''s plausible for them to have and what dinosaurs aren't, and my personal recollections of what I think these animals looked like on life. Theropods: I've never been a big fan of feathers on non-coelorosaurs, due to being entirely speculative outside of a primitive megalosaur covered in a coat of protofeathers. Coelorosaurs in particular have always been tricky for me because while we know for a fact that all dromaeosaurs had feathers, feathered tyrannosaurs have always looked stupid to me in almost every restoration of one I've seen (The king himself in particular seems to be a target for ugly restorations), so maybe that's why a tend to lean towards scaly restorations aesthetically speaking, though i have seen some feathered tyrannosaurs that don't make me wanna gouge my eyes out. Maybe for me it's because I grew up with the knowledge that certain dinosaurs had feathers, but most were scaly, and today, I'm being fed all this confusing conflicted information instead of just getting a blunt answer. Growing up seeing these dinosaurs this way for so long and just now seeing my favorite dinosaurs have every ounce of respect stripped away as they become cute balls of fluff. That in particular being something that annoys me, though maybe it's just personal that I see fluffball dinosaurs as being undignified caricatures of my former childhood favorites. In a nutshell, I don't mind feathered coelorosaurs too much, but maybe being a little more conservative when it comes to feathers would be nice, in my opinion. Why people hate them: Maybe because, like i said, feathered dinosaurs tend to look hideous, with restorations like this: ![]() With some of the less disgusting restorations like this: ![]() often being hidden from the public eye. However, I think the main thing it boils down to is that we've grown up with scaly dinosaurs for so long and now seeing every single dinosaur to ever exist become a cute ball of fluff is often so jarring that it infuriates you, and I think that's completely understandable, but the hate is often generated solely from the opinion that it looks stupid and nothing else, instead of coming up for a valid reason, though that is what is to be expected from the public. Sauropods: I have no problem with feathered sauropods, though I personally don't see any practicality or logical reasoning behind it. Ornithopods: Once again, aside from an unidentified euornithpod found with quills, we have no evidence for feathered ornithopods, though I don't particularly care for a parasaurolophus with quills running along it's back. Ceratopsians: This is a tricky one, because several ceratopsian ancestors have been discovered with quills on their tails, which has resulted in them being depicted as being covered in a coat of boar-like feathers, which bugs me, due to the comparison between mammals and dinosaurs, which is a useless argument, plus i just don't see the practicality in looking like a porcupine, especially since literally no one knows what the quills were used for, which is another thing that annoys me is that I haven't seen a single article about what purpose the quills might have served in the long run. Pachycephalosaurs: Um, not much to say here, I am an admitted fan of Pachy with quills, though. If you found any mistakes in my little analysis, please feel free to correct me. |
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| CyborgIguana | Nov 3 2013, 05:03 PM Post #563 |
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I mostly agree with that, though I still think tyrannosaurs were feathered.
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| Jules | Nov 3 2013, 05:24 PM Post #564 |
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Mihi est imperare orbi universo
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Esthetically speaking, I like giant fluffballs But that's just me I mostly agree on this, except for Tyrannosaurids and Ornithopods. "There is no use in looking like a porcupine". Well, there is, being a porcupine
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| Furka | Nov 3 2013, 05:39 PM Post #565 |
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there's plenty of possible uses for quills in ceratopsians. for example, an animal which has a full "coat" (not talking about being completely covered, but having it spread on the body in uniform way) would look like a healthy animal, while one with "bald" patches could be a sick animal, and then the rest of the species would probably be able to stay away from it to avoid being infected aswell. or just imagine a ceratopsian doing its own business, with quills laying down on the body, when suddenly a threat shows up (like a predator or a rival) and the animal raise the quills up like angry cats do: it would make it look more menacing, and it could serve as a warning signal for other members of the species. |
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| CyborgIguana | Nov 3 2013, 07:59 PM Post #566 |
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I agree with Dr. Hax that all polar and sub-polar dinosaurs probably had feathers. So Cryolophosaurus, Glacialisaurus, Antarctopelta, Leaellynasaura, Muttaburrasaurus, Australovenator, and maybe the northern variations of Edmontosaurus, Pachyrhinosaurus, Gorgosaurus (note that I think tyrannosaurids were feathered no matter what, just not quite as extensively in the more southern-climate ones), and Edmontonia were all feathered in my opinion.
Edited by CyborgIguana, Nov 3 2013, 08:00 PM.
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| Sheather | Nov 3 2013, 08:29 PM Post #567 |
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Thank you for the set, Azrael!
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It's my personal opinion that everything sported some form of covering, be it full-on flight feathers in maniraptors or a few bristles on sauropods. There is not evidence for bristles on sauropods, but if you find an elephant fossilized in 160 million years, you probably won't see any bristles on it either; hell, even a musk ox would almost certainly not fossilize all of its shaggy fur; the chances of that happening are a lot less than the bones and IMO why we don't find feathers on everything. I think this is an awesome and humorous example of how we tend to portray dinosaurs: http://electreel.deviantart.com/art/Alice-in-Specland-411193421 Because it's true; having not seen one in life and without its fur, why would we assume a rabbit had it, or it had long ears, or actual tissues on its body and not just skin shrink-wrapped over its skull? |
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Nov 3 2013, 08:33 PM Post #568 |
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I agree with Sheather. It would make sense for sauropods to have at least a little bit of bristles or something of the sort. |
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| CyborgIguana | Nov 3 2013, 09:05 PM Post #569 |
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Agreed. If people say it "looks stupid" that way, then that's their problem. Millions of years from now, our descendants might say that elephants look stupid with bristles, or that tigers look stupid with fur. |
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| Similis | Nov 4 2013, 01:53 AM Post #570 |
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While I generally disagree to put fuzz on everything, this is an interesting take on the assumption of presence of it in a rather unexpected group... http://tyranno-teen.blogspot.com/2013/08/thyreophora-xenarthra-fuzzy-ankylosaurus.html This guy is gold
Edited by Similis, Nov 4 2013, 01:54 AM.
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I'm sure he will answer. It must be somewhere in this gallery.



in that case disregard that last sentence.


But that's just me
I mostly agree on this, except for Tyrannosaurids and Ornithopods. "There is no use in looking like a porcupine". Well, there is, being a porcupine 



