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Extinct Animal Questions
Topic Started: Nov 26 2013, 10:24 PM (193,358 Views)
Urufu
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from which Time Period is the oldest known Feather?
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CyborgIguana
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Feathers may have been ancestral to Dinosauria (note that I said MAY, for the few who I'm quite certain will disagree), but the earliest evidence of them we have is from the middle Jurassic IIRC. So until we find earlier evidence of feathers, we can't say for sure when they first appeared.
Edited by CyborgIguana, Sep 6 2015, 12:39 PM.
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BossMan, Jake
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Son of God

I thought Protoavis was the earliest example of feathers dating to about 220 million years ago. IIRC
Edited by BossMan, Jake, Sep 6 2015, 01:41 PM.
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Luca9108
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Master of Dinosaurs

BossMan, Jake
Sep 6 2015, 01:40 PM
I thought Protoavis was the earliest example of feathers dating to about 220 million years ago. IIRC
If I am right, it isn't even sure if this animal is a dinosaur.
Edited by Luca9108, Sep 6 2015, 02:48 PM.
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CyborgIguana
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That and the evidence for feathers is highly questionable.
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BossAggron
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Formerly Dilophoraptor

Isn't protoavis dubious or something?
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CyborgIguana
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I think so, yes. The fossil is very fragmentary and we have no idea WHAT it actually is (IIRC it might even be a chimera composed of several different fossils).
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stargatedalek
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I'm not slow! That's just my moe!

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No feathers, and honestly these are pretty fragmentary remains.
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Paleop
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Paleopterix

1. what biome did giganotosaurus live in?
2.what other animals lived along with it?
3.could giganotosaurus have had a small patch of integument along the top of it's neck, or none at all?

thanks, :)
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Incinerox
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Āeksiot Zaldrīzoti

1) I want to say scrub. From what I can gather the Candeleros Formation was an inland delta in an otherwise windswept, dry environment. Sorta like the Okavango today. Except instead of grass and acacias and stuff, you'd have more araucaria, southern beech like modern Nothofagus, cypresses like Fitzroya, cycads, horsetails, ferns of a wide variety, various bennettitales, Ephedra, podocarps, the cypress-like cheirolepidiaceae, overall a typically more "gondwanan" floral type than say, Hell Creek.

2) Lets see...
> Limaysaurus
> Nopcsaspondylus
> Andesaurus
> Ekrixinatosaurus
> Buitreraptor
> Alnashetri
> Bicentenaria
> Unnamed iguanodonts
> Najash
> Prochelidella
> Cladotherian Mammals ie. mammals related to living taxa.
> Sphenodontians.
> Frogs
> Fish

3) Based purely off what we've got? Nah. As a carnosaur though, there is room for speculation so you wouldn't be inherently wrong to do so.
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CyborgIguana
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stargatedalek
Sep 6 2015, 09:02 PM
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No feathers, and honestly these are pretty fragmentary remains.
That looks like it could easily just be something like a coelophysoid fossil that got some pterosaur bits mingled in with it.
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BossMan, Jake
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Son of God

So a friend of mine thought of this conclusion the other day and it's quite interesting. If we look at the time that argentinosaurus was around it was one of the few if not the only giant sauropod in the area and it only had 1 predator "Mapusaurus" usually from an area between 95 and 90 million years ago. Jump ahead 5-10 million years in the relatively same location and we find it there is a larger diversely of large sauropods and a great majority of them are much larger than before some even approaching the size of argentinosaurus (futalongkosaurus, antarctosaurus, puertasaurus, and dreadnoughtus to name a few). Which makes you wonder how come there was a wider diversity and how come some were so large? He proposed that in this time era there must've been either one massive carnivore or a menagerie of large carnivores living in this time. This idea is pure speculation but does it sound reasonable?

(And this is his information by the way not mine)
Edited by BossMan, Jake, Sep 6 2015, 10:57 PM.
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Incinerox
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Āeksiot Zaldrīzoti

... Screw it, I'm going to need to plot this out to see what's going on. For you see, it's not just that one ecosystem, it was a whole chain of giant titanosaur-giant carnosaur dominated environments. Neuquen's fossil beds take up literally 2/3 of the whole cretaceous. Starting from oldest to youngest:

Lohan Cura Formation - ~117 to ~100Ma
We literally have three small sauropods (two titanosaurs and the rebbachisaurid Limaysaurus and a turtle. Horrendously incomplete. The largest sauropod here, Ligabuesaurus, was probably 20-25m. It was large-ish. Probably the precursor to the giants that come in later on.

Candeleros Formation - ~100 to ~97Ma
I just listed the known fauna from this formation earlier in this page. Obviously there was your mega-sauropod, Andesaurus, your megacarnosaur Giganotosaurus, and abelisaurid, Ekrixinatosaurus. In between that, there were at least two rebbachisaurids, unnamed iguanodonts, and a various array of smaller coelurosaurian theropods (including the unenlagiine buitreraptor). There's already a menagerie building up here.

Huincul Formation - ~97 to ~93Ma
This is your Argentinosaurus-Mapusaurus-Skorpiovenator ecosystem. Direct relations to the previous lot, alongside several ornithopods, a second abelisaurid and only one rebbachisaurid. Given the distinct lack of coelurosaurs and the sudden loss of rebbachisaurid data (despite them showing up again later on) suggests this is still incomplete.

Lisandro Formation - ~94 to ~91Ma
This is where we start losing it. We have nearly nothing from here - Quetecsaurus, fragmentary lognkosaurian titanosaur (which is a new appearance) and the ornithopod Anabisetia are the only two named dinosaurs there, though an unnamed abelisaurid existed here. So it's safe to assume that there was a lot more to this ecosystem than meets the eye.

Portezuelo Formation - ~91 to ~88Ma
This is where your "menagerie" starts to play into this, since now we're seeing Futalognkosaurus as our new giant saurpod, rather than the more basal antarctosaurids like Argentinosaurus. Not only that, we're seeing a return of the unenlagiines and an identifiable ornithopod, the arrival of Megaraptorids from good ol' 'Straya comes into play. Alongside Futalognkosaurus, there were two more titanosaurs that I can identify, but their exact placement within the titanosaurs is still not yet determined. There is also a distinct lack of known rebbachisaurids though.

Plottier Formation - ~88 to ~86Ma
And once again, we have almost nothing. The only identifiable dinosaur here is a supposed Antarctosaurus species, and a possible Mendozasaurus (which is known from older areas from other South American Strata as well). Other than that, NOTHING!

Bajo de la Carpa Formation - ~86 to ~83Ma
This is the weird one. Only one large dinosaur is known, and it's a TINY nemegtosaur, bonitasaura. Everything else are crocodilian, mammals, true birds, or the two present alverezsaurs, and the tiny noasaurid Velocisaurus. The fact is though, this was a very crocodilian dominated ecosystem.

Anacleto Formation - ~83 to ~78Ma
This is more on par with Portezuelo than the previous two. You've got your megaraptorid Aerosteon, your ornithopods and THREE large titanosaurs, one of which being Antarctosaurus itself. It's gone backwards since there are no lognkosaurs anymore. You've also got two abelisaurs, a land croc, and some true birds. Though again, still no large carnosaurs despite the presence of giant sauropods...

Allen Formation - ~78 to ~70Ma
Here it goes insane again. No more giant sauropods, no more megaraptorids. You have Austroraptor, the giant unenlagiine, an abelisaurid, two HADROSAURIDS, four sauropods, all of which are under 20m (one of which an aeolosaurid).

I think the key thing that stands out to me is that something happens during the Lisandro "phase" that completely wipes out the carnosaurs. It's worth noting that after that stage, no more rebbachisaurids either. And the old titanosaurs took a major hit before recovering only after Lognkosaurs came and went.

I dunno... I'll have to ask Austro about this since he's more aware of South American dinosaur antics. I hope that plotting it out on one page helps out a tad anyway. I'll have to come back to this one.
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Furka
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What other elephants have been found in mainland Italy (so not counting insular subspecies) other than Mammuthus meridionalis ?
I'm asking because I'm trying to identify a specimen from the museum I saw a while ago and I don't remember what it was, only that it should have been found here in Tuscany.

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Incinerox
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Āeksiot Zaldrīzoti

I actually found a paper on this. There's 4 elephants in mainland Italy according to the paper, two of which have specimens found in Tuscany (or should I say Tusk-any?):

Mammuthus meridionalis
Mammuthus trogontherii,
Mammuthus primigenius,
Elephas (Palaeoloxodon) antiquus


M. meridionalis and M. primigenius are the two known from Tuscany.

Honestly I think you've got M. meridionalis on your hands. I'm not entirely sure what your doubts were, if I'm honest.

I've only just skimmed this so here's the paper anyway:
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marco_Ferretti5/publication/223360448_Elephant_fossil_record_from_Italy_knowledge_problems_and_perspectives/links/5405fe530cf2bba34c1e270d.pdf
Edited by Incinerox, Sep 7 2015, 07:03 AM.
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