Re: Dino-Birds
Arthur V. Chadwick (chadwicka@swau.edu)
Wed, 02 Jun 1999 09:25:38 -0700
At 05:12 AM 6/2/99 PDT, you wrote:
>Hi ASA,
>
>Chinese researchers, in the latest issue of "Nature" [27 May 1999], report a
>new find of a dinosaur with filamentary integument i.e. pre-feathers, just
>like _Sinosauropteryx_. These filaments are clearly covering the animal
>rather than deceptively seeming like sub-dermal structures, as in the case
>of _Sinosauropteryx_, and the individual filaments seem to have hollow cores
>like true feathers. They're obviously not flight feathers, but they are a
>possible preadaptation ready for transformation in gliding arboreal dinos or
>leaping cursorial dinos.
They are not "feathers" in the technical sense, and to suggest that they
are something on its way to becoming feathers is of course pure speculation
(and your privilege). Fully competent "modern-type" feathers are already
present in the Jurassic Archaeopteryx, well below these Cretaceous
dinosaurs, and probably on creatures found lower still in the geologic column.
I am not aware of any feathered dinosaurs that might have resulted from
these "preadaptations".
Art
http://geology.swau.edu