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Extinct Animal Questions
Topic Started: Nov 26 2013, 10:24 PM (193,444 Views)
CyborgIguana
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TBH I still enjoy John Conway's and Joshua Knuppe's depictions of Masiakasaurus, even though both are feathered. :P

But anyway, I'll be sure to depict it with scales if I ever find myself wanting to draw it.
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Taurotragus
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Do we know if the southern most living sauropods had some sort of "feather" to keep warm during the harsh winters?
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Mathius Tyra
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Rat snake is love... Rat snake is life

Well, sauropods are more likely not having any form of feather at all, keeping in mind that feather is something that need a lot of care to keep healthy. Something that sauropod seems unlikely to be able to do so...
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stargatedalek
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I'm not slow! That's just my moe!

they could have had some other form of highly derived soft integument
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Taurotragus
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That's why I put the quotes around feather, I basically meant some sort of integument.
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Mathius Tyra
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Rat snake is love... Rat snake is life

But definitely not something like their theropods cousin have.
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stargatedalek
Nov 15 2014, 11:53 PM
they could have had some other form of highly derived soft integument
Yah but that is unlikely for any sauropod as we have skin impressions with scales.
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Even
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Which are terminated feathers (which still looks like scale, anyways)

Perhaps some layer of stage 1 protofeathers might be applied, since both of these structures (reticulate scales and protofeathers) can coexist... This especially goes for sauropods in cold weathers (of which we haven't found any dermal impressions yet)
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I know they are evolved feathers. All I'm saying is they probably aren't going to have any soft integument.
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Incinerox
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Āeksiot Zaldrīzoti

Diabloceratops
Nov 15 2014, 11:44 PM
Do we know if the southern most living sauropods had some sort of "feather" to keep warm during the harsh winters?
All sauropod skin records show either gecko like skin or lots and LOTS of osteoderms, or even a row of dorsal spikes (think iguana spikes). No records of feathers at all from any sauropod clade.

And where they fit on the saurischian family tree, given that soft integument didn't evolve until coelurosaurian theropods, it's unlikely they evolved soft integument of their own.

Besides, the South wasn't even that cold even by today's standards.
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stargatedalek
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I'm not slow! That's just my moe!

Incinerox
Nov 16 2014, 02:59 AM
soft integument didn't evolve until coelurosaurian theropods
this has never been proven
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Swimming Spaghetti Monster
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What can be said about the colouration of Palaeozoic nautiloids? Modern species are very similar, but then again they are closely related.
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Incinerox
Nov 16 2014, 02:59 AM
given that soft integument didn't evolve until coelurosaurian theropods
I'm not sure if that's true. Crocodiles have feather making genes and pterosaurs have pycnofibers which could be evolved protofeathers.
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Incinerox
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Āeksiot Zaldrīzoti

stargatedalek
Nov 16 2014, 08:26 AM
Incinerox
Nov 16 2014, 02:59 AM
soft integument didn't evolve until coelurosaurian theropods
this has never been proven
Quote:
 
Incinerox
Nov 16 2014, 02:59 AM
given that soft integument didn't evolve until coelurosaurian theropods
I'm not sure if that's true. Crocodiles have feather making genes and pterosaurs have pycnofibers which could be evolved protofeathers.


Proven, perhaps not. But you have to remember to stick with the basic principles of paleontological science and cladistics. I'll be excluding pterosaurs and curotarsans on the basis that pterosaur and dinosaur integument we KNOW to have been independent features, and despite having the genes to do so, we have no evidence that any curotarsan ever did evolve soft integument.

So to set this up, just recap:

Hidden because long list


By the rules of cladistics, for everything we have listed as unknown, we must refer to its nearest relatives for references of integument for the most likely, and least parsimonious outcome (not certain, but most likely). So for the basal theropods of which no integument is known, they are surrounded by scaled clades, the ceratosaurs and the sauropods. In turn, Megalosauroidea was surrounded by the heavily scaled ceratosauria and the more lightly scaled Carnosauria. After carnosauria, we're looking at a definitive lineage of fluff wearers, so I propose that theropod fluff evolved somewhere in that gap between the carnosauria and coelurosauria.

So for the data we have, it's less parsimonious to assume that all the empty spaces were just as scaly as their neigbouring clades. It's either that, or you have to assume one of the following:

1) All of the "unknown" clades evolved fluff independently from each other, the coelurosaurs and the ornithischians while the basal clades remained scaly along with the clades we happen to have data for.

2) All of the "unknown" clades were all fluffy, but the clades we happen to have data for up until the coelurosaurs just so happened to lose their soft integument independently from each other.

3) Fluff was the basal condition, but was immediately lost at the base of ceratosaurs and was RE-evolved again for the coelurosaurs.

All of which are simply unlikely. Not impossible. But it'd be a silly thing to assume with the data we've got, especially when we have a much smoother transition of integument seen by the theropod clades we have data for.
Edited by Incinerox, Nov 16 2014, 02:32 PM.
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Yi Qi
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Even if soft integument is earlier than coelurosaurs, we have enough evidence to say that sauropods DID NOT have it.

We have fossilized embryos, entire young individuals preserved inside their eggs aswell huge stretches of skin that show either pebbly large scales or HUGE osteoderms aswell as spines on some cases.

EDIT: DG ninja'ed me to it.
Edited by Yi Qi, Nov 16 2014, 02:33 PM.
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