From the North (of China) came the furry tyrannosaurs

[Gwangi]

I believe all Gwangi is saying is that if trex was feathered, it might not have been as thick as on Y huali. I can go with that I would not agree that in a warm climate a large animals HAS to be naked or nearly naked (although I don't think that was what Gwangi was saying), but as can be seen between ostriches and snowy owls, climate difference can affect the amount of feathers a bird has.

Thank you, it is nice to see someone understands what I'm saying.

[Tylosaurus]

I believe all Gwangi is saying is that if trex was feathered, it might not have been as thick as on Y huali. I can go with that I would not agree that in a warm climate a large animals HAS to be naked or nearly naked (although I don't think that was what Gwangi was saying), but as can be seen between ostriches and snowy owls, climate difference can affect the amount of feathers a bird has.

Thank you, it is nice to see someone understands what I'm saying.

Your explaantion was very clear to me Gwangi but yeah Seijun also gave a very neat explanation and I thank her for that too

[Arioch]

I believe all Gwangi is saying is that if trex was feathered, it might not have been as thick as on Y huali. I can go with that I would not agree that in a warm climate a large animals HAS to be naked or nearly naked (although I don't think that was what Gwangi was saying), but as can be seen between ostriches and snowy owls, climate difference can affect the amount of feathers a bird has.

*Sigh*

OK, lets sum it up.

In a nutshell, we disagree in elephants or any other big mammals integument being a good analogy for feather loss in large theropods (doesn´t help that I´m a bit fed up with this argument... that´s beyond the point though). T. Rex, albertosaurus or even Tarbosaurus would likely have had a less extensive feather coat than Yutyrannus or Sinotyrannus, consequence of living in a warmer climate. Agreed, and ratites like the cassowary, the ostrich or the huge and extinct moa bird are a good analogy here. But even being overall less feathered than smaller birds, ratites feathered parts are as thickly feathered as any other smaller bird, there´s no feather loss on their upper bodies to the point or ressembling anything like elephant sparse fuzz, as that would be pointless. In fact , moa bird had a full feathered neck and head, and it was the largest of the family...

[stoneage]

The Yixian climate, while rather cold was still a far cry from those were wooly mammoths had to live... and no, again, overheating wouldn´t be a problem. 

Beat me to it ! lol  I don;t see how that overheating thing ever got started..when you stop and think for a minute it doesn't make any sense at all really.  Just think how many birds over heat...

And, for what it's worth, although not a dinosaur (elephants were mentioned) the ground sloth Megatherium and it's relatives had heavy hair, lived in jungles and the dry, hot southwest U.S. and weighed 6-8 tons. Probably didn't overheat.

Trouble is Megatherium lived during the Ice Age, and parts of North America were covered by Glaciers.  It wasn't anywhere near as hot as the Mesozoic

[Gwangi]

OK, lets sum it up.

In a nutshell, we disagree in elephants or any other big mammals integument being a good analogy for feather loss in large theropods (doesn´t help that I´m a bit fed up with this argument... that´s beyond the point though).

If you're fed up you could just not respond, I certainly don't need a biology lesson from you but thanks for the concern. My elephant analogy was just a casual remark demonstrating the difference in body covering between related animals...that was all. You're the one who felt to need to nitpick what I had said and blew it out of proportion. I certainly didn't ask you what you thought, you entered the conversation on your own free will and can leave it just the same.

T. Rex, albertosaurus or even Tarbosaurus would likely have had a less extensive feather coat than Yutyrannus or Sinotyrannus, consequence of living in a warmer climate. Agreed, and ratites like the cassowary, the ostrich or the huge and extinct moa bird are a good analogy here. But even being overall less feathered than smaller birds, ratites feathered parts are as thickly feathered as any other smaller bird, there´s no feather loss on their upper bodies to the point or ressembling anything like elephant sparse fuzz, as that would be pointless. In fact , moa bird had a full feathered neck and head, and it was the largest of the family...

I don't think you realize how much fuzz an elephant actually has but whatever. People seem to think of them as hairless when it is quite the opposite, they also tend to be more hairy dorsally. Never mind the moa as it lived in forested regions cooler than what an ostrich would have lived in. I guess I'll just go ahead and apologize for even joining the discussion, clearly even casually comparing a mammal to a dinosaur was a big mistake.  If I had known you would come at me with such retribution I wouldn't have said anything.

[Arioch]

Uhm...  sorry if it sounded like an attack, certainly not my intention. My "biterness" regarding certain theories doesn´t have to extend necessarily to the person behind them. Neither of us need to apologize or play the victim, we´re just debating.

Even elephants have to contend with colder weather but yet their hair is sparse, the same could be true for Tyrannosaurus.

Sorry if I misunderstood you, but this seems more than a casual remark. You can´t blame me for taking it as a literal comparison...

[Himmapaan]

Ah, the benighted internet! Even when folks are on the same page, it still manages to confuse and confound! 

[Gwangi]

Sorry if I misunderstood you, but this seems more than a casual remark. You can´t blame me for taking it as a literal comparison...

I would not have even thought of an elephant comparison if someone else hadn't already done it for me but no, it was not to be taken literally. I know dinosaurs aren't elephants.

Xu speculates that Yutyrannus's feathers might have been a winter coat. While most giant tyrannosaurs enjoyed warm climates during the late Cretaceous, Yutyrannus lived at a time when the average yearly temperature was a nippy 10 degrees Celsius. Maybe it was the tyrannosaur equivalent of woolly mammoths and woolly rhinos, whose shaggy coats protected them during the Ice Age. "The idea of woolly tyrannosaurs stalking colder climates in the Cretaceous is kinda mind-blowing," says Witmer.
http://chasmosaurs.blogspot.com/2012/04/bow-to-yutyrannus-your-great-feathered.html

[Arioch]

Yeah, Xu could have stayed quiet there. If the "winter coat" thing means that they would almost or completely shed their feathers when the cold season is gone, then he was just throwing a bone to the more conservative T. rex fanboys. In this matter people should be listening to the opinions of people like Andrea Cau or Tom Holtz.

PS: On a side note, and to make it def clear... Its not the first time I´ve heard of the elephant fuzz example from the mouth of BANDITs or anti feathers-in-dinos crowd when they try to justify their agenda, so excuse me if I get a bit edgy and susceptible about it, I didn´t mean to offend you, Gwangi.

[Gryphoceratops]

 

[Seijun]

I didn't interpret the winter coat comment to mean that they might have shed their feathers in summer. I interpenetrated it to mean "the thick fuzz might have been an adaptation to the colder climate".  I.E - It acted as a "coat", providing insulation, not that it behaved in the exact same way as a mammal's "winter coat". If that makes any sense.

Although, I do find it interesting that the anti-feather crowd would use elephants for support, since even they have fur.
http://i.pbase.com/o3/38/643038/1/108272883.ksAnb3WU.elephantfur.jpg
Which also gets me to thinking.. Do wild elephants live anywhere where it can snow or get very cold? Maybe in some of their Asian habitats?

[Arioch]

Well, can´t expect them to be coherent on their speech, do we.  The whole losing hair as -extant- mammals got bigger thing should work exponentially in dinos too, according them. Hence the naked Utahraptor sounding perfectly reasonable, for instance.

I really hope Xu meant that, but I also know who must be using my interpretation for their own purpose...

[australovenator]

so we finally get confirmation that some large theropods are feathered?..cool

[Eriorguez]

Elephants are not a good analogy for large theropods. Elephants are built like bricks, and mammals in general have a very high metabolism, producing a huge ammount of heat, while we have evidence than dinosaurs were less wasteful. Not to mention that they are descendants of aquatic animals

In the "Ice Age", tropical areas were still warm, and modern Loxodonta elephants lived in the same temperature range as hairy Megatherium.

Black rhinos and giraffes live in the same area and have the same mass more or less, but quite different integument. I would say a giraffe is closer in build to a long-legged theropod than a brick-built rhino is.

The range of Tyrannosaurids goes from Alaska to Texas. Alaskan Tyrannosaurus wouldn't live in tropical conditions. Compare the fur of Bengal and Siberian tigers.

[Sharptooth]

Wow, wow and WOW!

(Finally i can talk about this guy  )


It was expected, afterall, that sooner or later we'd find a protofeathered big tyrant; it was also expected that this guy lived in a somewhat cold climate... And, at the same time, i'd guess the tyrannosaurs in warmer places were probably less "furry".
I'm not sayin' that they had less protofeathers, no... As i said some time ago, i imagine T.rex and his cousins to have both scales and protofeathers, but with more or less degrees of variation between the species and depending on the enviroment, for example:
the alaskan T.rexes were fuzzier (like, for example, Yutyrannus), the new mexican one had the same number of protofeathers but shorter or smaller (like in elephants or like the armor of the armadillo, with hair inbetween the scales... I know they are not good ecological analogues for Rexy, it's just a visual example).

About the "winter coat"... Mmh, maybe, but not in the sense that he shed the fuzz somewhere in time, more than changing the colors of his coat, as many modern arctic animals do 

[Yutyrannus]

Who else thinks that sometime soon, Yutyrannus is going to be made into a figure and/or documentary? Also I completely forgot about Yutyrannus having feathered feet, guess I'd better add that to my Yutyrannus as well.

[Brontozaurus]

I'm pretty sure CollectA will immortalise it in plastic next year. They made a Concavenator less than a year after it was discovered, and Yutyrannus grabbed far more headlines than it did. So there's a good chance.

Not sure about a doco though, unless it's only half an hour long. I'm not sure there's much to say about Yutyrannus, unless they make it about feathered dinosaurs in general and include Yutyrannus.

[Yutyrannus]

I'm pretty sure CollectA will immortalise it in plastic next year. They made a Concavenator less than a year after it was discovered, and Yutyrannus grabbed far more headlines than it did. So there's a good chance.

Not sure about a doco though, unless it's only half an hour long. I'm not sure there's much to say about Yutyrannus, unless they make it about feathered dinosaurs in general and include Yutyrannus.

That's pretty much what I ment.