Feathered Dinosaurs

[suspsy]

The only thing I don't like about feathered dinosaurs is that not enough people know about them.

Also, I have yet to encounter a single person claiming that ALL dinosaurs were feathered. I think that's a baseless accusation.

[alexeratops]

The only thing I don't like about feathered dinosaurs is that not enough people know about them.

Also, I have yet to encounter a single person claiming that ALL dinosaurs were feathered. I think that's a baseless accusation.

I have ( he says all dinos have a possibility)

https://youtu.be/sGAixpQcqdU

[alexeratops]

Huh, Im the only one to vote "no". 

jk... no offense 

[stargatedalek]

It is simply erroneous to claim all dinosaurs had the possibility of feathers. However, feathers are hardly the only form of soft integument and it can be said with 100% certainty that all dinosaurs had the genetic capability to grow soft integument. This doesn't mean they all had thick downy coats, its entirely reasonable to presume that many groups lost their integument at least in part.

[Arul]

I like feathered dinosaur  (only dromeosaur)

What about the other non-tyrannosaurid coelurosaurs?

Emm you mean oviraptor, ornithomimus, therizinosaurus ? Yeah i like them but dromeosaur is my favorite 

[HD-man]

Emm you mean oviraptor, ornithomimus, therizinosaurus ? Yeah i like them but dromeosaur is my favorite 

Just making sure. Dromaeosaurs are my favorite too.

[Steve170]

I'm happy to follow the truth, feathered or not. Feathered makes so much sense with certain dinos. I'm not up to date with my knowledge (I have too many interests) so can anyone point me to a good source where I can find the latest views on what dinos are believed to be feathered and not etc...or reply here if it's easy enough?

[stargatedalek]

I'm happy to follow the truth, feathered or not. Feathered makes so much sense with certain dinos. I'm not up to date with my knowledge (I have too many interests) so can anyone point me to a good source where I can find the latest views on what dinos are believed to be feathered and not etc...or reply here if it's easy enough?

That depends on how you define feather and what you mean by it.

We have evidence that true feathers (like those of birds) are only present in theropods, coelurosaurs all have a very high probability of being feathered, IMO almost a certainty for any coelurosaur. Any other theropod can be given feathers within a reasonable level of speculation, but its still purely conjecture. The only theropod group that explicitly has evidence against feathers is abelisaurs, but they might have lost them rather than never had them.

Soft integument in general however, is basal to ornithodira, if not much earlier in archosauria. Even crocodiles show DNA evidence of soft integument, but what does this really mean? It doesn't mean every archosaur had soft integument, or even every ornithodiran, it just means that every ornithodiran had the genetic capacity for soft integument. Genetic capacity gives us reasonable level of speculation for any group of ornithodirans where soft integument makes sense and isn't obscured by other evidence.

For example sauropods probably didn't have saggy coats of fluff, since an animal of that size would have difficulty grooming itself. However they might have had soft integumental display structures, or if you want to get really speculative perhaps they did have thick coats of fluff to cool down, and had some sort of symbiotic species to clean them. But there is no way that sauropods could possibly have had feathers, they are just to far away genetically from coelurosaurs. If sauropods had soft integument it wasn't feathers but something entirely different.

[Patrx]

To clarify your terminology further, Star - many people use the term "feather" to any filamentous covering aside from hair and pycnofibres (whatever those actually are) 

A similar issue arises with "scales" which can refer to the boney plates on fish, the unique pebbly or keeled things on snakes and lizards, the scutes and reticulae of dinosaurs (which seem to be modified "feathers"). the scutes on many mammals (which are modified hair), and the fractured keratin sheathes of modern crocodiles. Even humans have tiny sections of keratin in the structure of our skin which have been called "scales".

[Steve170]

Thanks very much to you both

[Plasticbeast95]

Huh, Im the only one to vote "no". 

jk... no offense 

hey...

[Balaur]

Now, I don't think all dinosaurs have feathers, but I do think all had some sort of filamentous integument. We found in theropods, ceratopsians, ornithischians, and even pterosaurs with fuzz, plus crocs have dormant genes to produce feathers. I think feathers or filamentous integument is basal to all archosaurs, and some lineages lost them, mainly the croc-line archosaurs, but the bird-line archosaurs, ornithodirans, probably all had some sort of fuzzy covering. But it depends. I'm not saying all dinosaurs are fluffy, I'm saying all have the possibility to have fuzz.

[Halichoeres]

Now, I don't think all dinosaurs have feathers, but I do think all had some sort of filamentous integument. We found in theropods, ceratopsians, ornithischians, and even pterosaurs with fuzz, plus crocs have dormant genes to produce feathers. I think feathers or filamentous integument is basal to all archosaurs, and some lineages lost them, mainly the croc-line archosaurs, but the bird-line archosaurs, ornithodirans, probably all had some sort of fuzzy covering. But it depends. I'm not saying all dinosaurs are fluffy, I'm saying all have the possibility to have fuzz.

Crocodiles have dormant genes for producing feathers? I wasn't aware of that. There was a study by Scott Edwards that inferred that 86% of the cis-regulatory elements associated with feather production were present in ancestral archosaurs, but 14% can do a lot to change scale placodes into quill or feather placodes. (Not to mention, most of these were present in the common ancestor of amniotes, but there are no feathers or fuzzy integuments on turtles or lepidosaurians, and our own integuments are quite distinct in terms of ontogeny). You might be talking about some evidence I haven't seen yet, though, so that would be interesting if so. But based solely on the Edwards et al. study, I'm not sure it's parsimonious to infer feathers, qua feathers, in the base of Archosauria.

[Megalosaurus]

Hello.
I like scally dinosaurs. And thats not about going against science, its just personal aesthetics preferences.
As for the "every dinosaur was feathered" hypothesis I'm against it.

Need to refer to Barrett et al on the Evolution of dinosaur epidermal structures.
But here you are the proper thread for discussion of the paper if you like to:
http://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=3476.0   

[Gwangi]

People interested in real dinosaurs, the way they really were and the science behind how we know are naturally alright with the notion of feathers on dinosaurs because that is what the science tell us. Personally, I love dinosaurs regardless of integument. I loved dinosaurs when I thought they were scaly, I love dinosaurs when we found out some had feathers. If we find out all dinosaurs had them, I'll love them regardless. I'm interested in knowing as much as I can about these animals, I have no bias. It seems to me that those in favor of scaly dinosaurs prefer dinosaurs as pop culture icons, movie monsters, etc. etc. and it is entirely possible that some of those people flat out don't care what actual dinosaurs looked like. Real dinosaurs are not as important to them as the pop culture monsters they love. I personally love pop culture dinosaurs as well, I love dinosaurs in all their iterations but in the end, fiction is not real and the real thing is ALWAYS more interesting. A scaly Velociraptor (as an example) is pure fiction, why prefer that over the real animal? Clearly it is because the real animal is trumped by the pop culture preference. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that, actually I find it interesting. Dinosaurs are a rare subject where people can be divided into these two distinct camps. Where two groups of people can love the same thing for entirely different reasons. So yeah, the fictitious "raptors" in "Jurassic Park" are cool, but I'm far more interested in Velociraptor mongoliensis, the Paravian theropod that lived 70 million years ago in Mongolia.

[suspsy]

100% with you, Gwangi. To me, dinosaurs are far more fascinating as animals, not monsters.

[Balaur]

Me too. This is why I never portray dinosaurs as monsters. They are animals, and people forget that, which can be annoying.

[Dobber]

I also agree. I WANT to know what a Dinosaur REALLY looked like. Whatever the science tells us I'm good with. Hence my first post about Coelurosaurs, particularly Dromeosaurs. My issue, which Suspy had a problem with, is when we take a current "trend" and start applying it where there is little to no evidence supporting it. As Balaur noted, most species had the capacity, genetically, to have some form of filamentous covering....even modern croc's. Do modern Croc's have them though...no. Having the capacity doesn't equal having them. Some absolutely do, and that's awesome. But adding such things with such a large brush is the same as preferring the "movie monster" versions.  Science has shown us that we don't know it all and what works for one species doesn't necessarily work for or fully develope in others.

Chris

[Steve170]

So the only feasible way of knowing for sure will be time travel. I don't need a better phone, or tv, or game console, or any other needless modern thing...so can all the tech brains out there just focus on making a 'time machine' please. And we can all go to the museum to find out the discoveries...just like good old times.

[Papi-Anon]

Seeing how civil this thread has been is QUITE a breath of fresh air after having to scroll through dino threads on 4chan (I hang around /toy/).

Not much else to add that everyone else has said. I like scientific accuracy over scifi, even if true science deflates some of the best scifi ideas (curse you, Law of Consevation! I want to see things transform into giant/shrunken forms and other things!).

I'm going to be heartbroken if I live to see the day that a more complete specimen of Andrewsarchus shows that it was actually just a large enteledont of some sort, and not the badass mesonychid on steroids I've always imagined it as.