Hello!

[Lythronax]

Hello,

First of all I apologize for my English -it's a foreign language to me-, but I hope that the content of my comments is interesting enough to compensate for my not-so-good language skills. I may not be aware enough of the tone of my posts and not be able to answer your comments in the best possible way. So, I apologize in advance if I come across as rude.

I have been reading the blog and the forum since last year, and I find it very interesting. I have not registered until now because I have only recently started collecting resin model kits. I still haven't found the time to prepare them. 

I am 30 and have grown up with the development of the Dinosaur Renaissance, lead by Robert Bakker and Jack Horner, until the arrival of Jurassic Park, which changed the way we see dinosaurs. However, in recent years I have realized that wild phylogenetic inferences and the most radical actualism have ravaged the reconstructions of several dinosaur, without valid scientific reasons for it. For instance, the phylogenetic inference of feathers (also in horned dinosaurs), dewlap in tyrannosaurus and sauropods, turkey wattles in Deinonychus, flashy colors (as in modern birds), the keratin helmet in Triceratops (lucky we that this came to an end with the finding of the skin frill in Chasmosaurus), et cetera. These problems not only happen in paleoartistic reconstructions, but also in paleobiology (and paleontology in general) as well as in the interpretation of ontogeny (e.g. Triceratops and Torosaurus, but fortunately it seems that people start to recognize Torosaurus again). Other examples are the interpretation of the neural crests in Spinosaurus, Oranosaurus, Concavenator and, more recently, Deinocheirus.

To me, the origin of these mistakes tracks back to a single problem: the lack of biologists in multidisciplinary teams in paleontological studies. We must remember that historically paleontology comes from geology (fortunately this problem is now being corrected and people speak more and more of Paleobiology). This problem has stretched over many years. For example, Robert Bakker's hypothesis of mass extinction, which states that dinosaurs became extinct when the continents became in contact due to disease transmission. This hipothesis is now dismissed, but was defended for many years. We know that continents coming into contact have never caused mass extincion, so nobody can seriously think that dinosaurs became extinct for this reason. For instance, North America has the same or similar species than Eurasia. And the colonization of South America by the North American wildlife, a process that resulted in the extinction of most of the fauna in the south, but this did not caused the extinction of the two faunas. And if we look only at the fossil registry, we can perfectly see that there have been constant exchanges between North America and Eurasia, which have allowed the persistence of populations to the point of creating new species. There are many examples in hadrosaurians, ceratopsians, pachycephalosaurs , dromeasaurs , oviraptosaurs... and the case of Tyrannosaurus and Tarbosaurus, known for a long time.

And an even more flagrant case is that of Jack Horner (to my regret, because we owe so much to this man). A good example of this is the interpretation of Tyrannosaurus as a strict scavenger. To make a long story short, it would do good to Horner to improve his knowledge about the concept of allometry (and not just content himself in the topic of relative sizes) so that he would be able to understand the functions of the structures and the ontogenetic changes. For example, nobody can say that Tyrannosaurus had poor eyesight because it had relatively small eyes, when these eyes have the size of a tennis ball and an optic nerve almost as thick as a little finger. To this fact we must add opinions like that Triceratops did not use their horns for attack or defense. For the acceptance of a hypothesis and it becoming a theory, evidence is necessary. And if we find a single piece of evidence that contradicts a theory, we must discard and it and replaced it with better one (either similar or completely different, but that explains all evidences found). Therefore, Horner should have dismissed his hypothesis when there was evidence of predation by Tyrannosaurus or evidence of the use of the horns for attack or for defense in ceratopsids. All this leads me to think that all the successes Horner has had on maternal behavior, endothermy, growth rate in hadrosaurs and dinosaur ontogeny have more to do with his creativity, than with him having a deep understanding of the biological processes and selective pressures that shape organisms and knowing how to apply the scientific method. This makes me sad.

I'm not a paleontologist. I'm a biologist and I don't work in paleontology. I work in wildlife management in urban and periurban areas, basically in my city, Barcelona (which for the moment is in Spain). I'm the herpetology specialist in the team. To me, paleontology is a hobby, therefore I can't say I have the necessary knowledge for the correct interpretation of fossils, or I that I am better suited than others to reconstruct the appearance or the life of dinosaurs. But as a biologist, I can say that there are several things that do not seem correct (both from amateurs as from paleontologists). In Spain there is a saying about what makes a good product: "bueno, bonito y barato" (good, nice and cheap). This saying can be applied to biology, where the product is the species: good, cheap and, if possible, beautiful (on which sexual selection can act).

For a correct interpretation of fossils and a plausible reconstruction it is important to understand the selective pressures in organisms that have shaped species over generations (each organism that has left viable offspring, so it has first undergone "quality control"). And if this is not taken into account (which is quite common in paleontology), we must bear in mind the general selective pressures that both occur both in the past and today. We must also keep in mind the existence of fossil organisms from the same period and with similar appearance (I mean similar size and shape) that may end up having similar biological strategies while not directly related (as they are subjected to the same biological pressures, the so-called convergent evolution).

Sorry for the length of the text, it took me a long time to prepare (for me, English is a language barrier) and I wanted to publish in one post. Moreover, I tend to indulge in rants.

I have decided to participate in this forum because I find it a lot of fun with the plus that it covers interesting topics with a serious approach (despite being a forum for toys ;-)  ). And besides, I thought that here there are readers who are paleoartists or are related to them and you guys are able to influence the way everyone sees dinosaurs.

PD: I prefer not to answer your comments in this comment. I will instead discuss in depth each topic I have introduced here by either writing a specific post for each or joining active threads. Here I just wanted to introduce myself and expose my ideas on some topics.

[Jetoar]

Hello new friend and welcome to DTF  .

[Paleogene Pals]

Yikes! I read your post. I don't think you will like how I restored my Brachiosaurus!

[Lythronax]

Thanks for your welcome, Jetoar. Me reconforta ver que hay otros locos como yo por aquí. 

Hi Paleogene, I'm looking forward to the images of your Brachiosaurus!  I can like it very much from an artistic point of view. Let's see whether it is plausible from a biological point of view (in my opinion)  I have an open mind, I always keep in mind that a tiger would be looking like a leopard perfectly viable, but that we got lucky and it looks more spectacular and colorful.

[Concavenator]

You're welcome ! 

[Paleogene Pals]

Lythronax,  I'll post photos of my WIP Brachiosaurus today.  Since it is a conversion of the Horizon JP Brachiosaurus, I will post them in Customized Figures.  Right now, I gotta go watch Iowa whoop up on LSU!