Redesigning a tyrant: Meet the new Tyrannosaurus rex

[Rain]

If you go back and actually look instead of assuming, you'd see I wasn't suggesting it did. I was merely asking Stargate if there's any other bigger dinos with feathers (since theres a size difference between the two) as I'm unaware of them. You budded in yourself and assumed. However, I do believe it'd be unlikely for bigger Dinosaurs to have feathers without reason. Which begs me to wonder what purpose a T rex would have with feathers
Even with that context, 2 meters is 1/5th of the animal...A very considerable amount

You are essentially saying that you are not claiming that the 2 meters would play a big role, and then going on to claim just that. You did the same thing before, so which is it? Do those 2 meters play a significant role, or do they not? I am not talking about how big a percentage of the animal's length it is, if an animal is already 10 meters long, if we are already talking about a very, very large creature, can you provide an explanation as to why those 2 meters would heavily influence the integument? If not, then Yutyrannus remains the best comparison we have, and feathers remain the default assumption. And as for what purpose feathers would serve on an animal the size of T. rex, there are many things it would have used them for. The first and most obvious is display, evolution is all about passing on your genes, and for this reason sexual selection is in many ways as or even more important than long term survival. But feathers would not affect long term survival negatively, anything but. As can be seen in modern birds such as ostriches, feathers function fundamentally different than fur. While fur is essentially a blanket on the body, helping to keep it warm, feathers are a far more complex structure, capable not only of heating an animal but also of cooling it. For a creature the size of T. rex, feathers may actually have helped prevent it from overheating.

Nope, I don't restrict dinofuzz within the Theropoda. But I don't think that dinofuzz existed in other Dinosaur groups, Such as Sauropods.

Why not? I mean sure, later more derived sauropods probably lost it in at least some lineages, but early members of the group, so-called "prosauropods", may very well have possessed at least some limited covering. I would not even be surprised if some later lineages retained it in certain regions purely for display, perhaps on the neck or tail, but this is of course pure speculation.

My friend, before raging away at your keyboard, you should DEFINITELY go back and read. You clearly aren't doing that. Stargate said we have dinosaurs the same size as T rex had feathers, I asked if there's a dino bigger than that as there's a considerable size difference. Heres where you come in raging away with your trusty keyboard. You said 2 metres is hardly considerable, I said it is.. There you go. Not once did I say it makes a difference, I only inquired to find out what dino she was referring to. Nice going. Assuming doesn't do you any good

[Loxodon]

Raging at my keyboard?  Emotions are quite hard to make out through text, but I don't think you read me very well. Reading your earlier posts however, I still don't see you saying that they had feathers. You said that they may have had, which I had failed to acknowledge, but not that you definitely believe that they did. Not sure what your issue with the rest of my point is however. I was saying that a 2 meter difference is quite insignificant in relation to integument when we are already dealing with animals of tremendous size, not that 2 meters is in and of itself a small difference in length, which would of course be incorrect, 2 meters is the length of a lion! But if by "However, I do believe it'd be unlikely for bigger dinosaurs to have feathers without reason." you were not referring to Tyrannosaurus rex, what then did you mean? I must confess to not following you there

[Rain]

Raging at my keyboard?  Emotions are quite hard to make out through text, but I don't think you read me very well. Reading your earlier posts however, I still don't see you saying that they had feathers. You said that they may have had, which I had failed to acknowledge, but not that you definitely believe that they did. Not sure what your issue with the rest of my point is however. I was saying that a 2 meter difference is quite insignificant in relation to integument when we are already dealing with animals of tremendous size, not that 2 meters is in and of itself a small difference in length, which would of course be incorrect, 2 meters is the length of a lion! But if by "However, I do believe it'd be unlikely for bigger dinosaurs to have feathers without reason." you were not referring to Tyrannosaurus rex, what then did you mean? I most confess to not following you there

Noooooooooo you're still misunderstanding me ugh  I'm not saying they had feathers, or they didn't. What I'm saying is that 2 meters is a considerable amount as all you said was it isn't. Make sense?

[Loxodon]

You're saying that you are neutral on the issue, yes? And that it could go either way? But you also provided some points in favor of an absence of feathers which I disagreed with. If I have come off as aggressive then I do apologies however, that was not my intention. It is getting rather late here, so I will be signing off. Once again, sorry if you construed me as being aggressive, I did not mean to be.

[Gwangi]

There is no direct fossil evidence for feathers on Deinocheirus even if it's highly likely that they had them.

Missed this before, but Deinocheirus has a pygostyle, which is pretty strongly associated with the presence of feathers. And as mentioned before, Deinocheirus is as large or larger than T. rex in terms of body mass, and lived in a similar, if not warmer, environment.

And yes, I meant preservation bias more indirectly, as in younger individuals are morel likely to die and then be preserved. There's probably a better term for this but I can't think of it...

And actually, all this discussion over 10m vs 12 m size differences are kind of irrelevant, because what matters here is mass, not length. While they were about the same length, on average, T. rex was much more robust and had a greater mass (~1.4t vs. at least 4.5t). So while it was only 1.2 times longer than Yutyrannus, T. rex was at least 3 times larger.

Thanks, I was not aware that Deinocheirus had a pygostyle.

[Rain]

You're saying that you are neutral on the issue, yes? And that it could go either way? But you also provided some points in favor of an absence of feathers which I disagreed with. If I have come off as aggressive then I do apologies however, that was not my intention. It is getting rather late here, so I will be signing off. Once again, sorry if you construed me as being aggressive, I did not mean to be.

No. I'm saying I don't have a definitive answer. But like I said, I do think it would've been unlikely for a dinosaur that big and heavy to have feathers as they surely wouldn't have been of use, but I'm not saying its feathered nor am I saying it was scaly. It could've been either for all I know. And yes, I apologize too

[Plasticbeast95]

Phylogenetic bracketing indicates that fuzz may be ancestral to all ornithodirans, or at the least all dinosaurs. If this is the case, early sauropods would have had fuzz no matter what, the real question is when or if they all lost it. My presumption would be that the majority of the covering was lost fairly early on, since primitive dinofuzz was more like fur than feathers, and as such may have been problematic for larger animals. On top of this though, I would speculate and say that it is not wholly unreasonable, though also not necessarily likely, that at least some lineages of more derived sauropods retained limited coverings of fuzz in some regions.

Again I ask, proof?

[Yutyrannus]

Phylogenetic bracketing indicates that fuzz may be ancestral to all ornithodirans, or at the least all dinosaurs. If this is the case, early sauropods would have had fuzz no matter what, the real question is when or if they all lost it. My presumption would be that the majority of the covering was lost fairly early on, since primitive dinofuzz was more like fur than feathers, and as such may have been problematic for larger animals. On top of this though, I would speculate and say that it is not wholly unreasonable, though also not necessarily likely, that at least some lineages of more derived sauropods retained limited coverings of fuzz in some regions.

Again I ask, proof?

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6195/451.abstract

[Rain]

Wow, I was under the impression that only theropods had feathers. Neato

[Gwangi]

Phylogenetic bracketing indicates that fuzz may be ancestral to all ornithodirans, or at the least all dinosaurs. If this is the case, early sauropods would have had fuzz no matter what, the real question is when or if they all lost it. My presumption would be that the majority of the covering was lost fairly early on, since primitive dinofuzz was more like fur than feathers, and as such may have been problematic for larger animals. On top of this though, I would speculate and say that it is not wholly unreasonable, though also not necessarily likely, that at least some lineages of more derived sauropods retained limited coverings of fuzz in some regions.

Again I ask, proof?

First two words in his statement. Phylogenetic bracketing.

[Dinoguy2]

You're saying that you are neutral on the issue, yes? And that it could go either way? But you also provided some points in favor of an absence of feathers which I disagreed with. If I have come off as aggressive then I do apologies however, that was not my intention. It is getting rather late here, so I will be signing off. Once again, sorry if you construed me as being aggressive, I did not mean to be.

Let's say I'm 2 inches taller than my friend. To a mouse, this might seem like a considerable difference. To me, it doesn't, and we seem to be about the same size.

Wow, I was under the impression that only theropods had feathers. Neato

There's also Tianyulong and Psittacosaurus among ornithischians with feather-like structures. And of course pterosaurs. It looks like all ornithodirans started out with feathers and then many lineages lost them on most of their bodies (like sauropods, hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, and ceratosaurians). We also know of many species hat are only a little bit feathered (like Psittacosaurus), feathered on the body but not the tail or legs (Kulindadromeus, Juravenator), and feathered on the top but not on the underside (Ornithomimus, tyrannosaurids...?). And everything in between. Even Yutyrannus had scale impressions on the underside of the base of the tail.

People act like feathering is all or nothing, but even just in the few fossils we have, we see feathers of every kind in every arrangement in nearly every ornithodiran group, and many unfeathered or mostly unfeathered lineages in the non-maniraptoran groups. We're so stuck on modern birds, which display the unique maniraptoran arrangement, that it's hard to accept the kind of variety we're finding in non-maniraptoran feathering.

What this is also showing us is that, while phylogenetic bracing can tell us whether an animal had feathered ancestors and therefore the genes for growing feathers, outside of Maniraptora it can't do a very good job of predicting if an animal had feathers, how much, and what arrangement.

[Rain]

You're saying that you are neutral on the issue, yes? And that it could go either way? But you also provided some points in favor of an absence of feathers which I disagreed with. If I have come off as aggressive then I do apologies however, that was not my intention. It is getting rather late here, so I will be signing off. Once again, sorry if you construed me as being aggressive, I did not mean to be.

Let's say I'm 2 inches taller than my friend. To a mouse, this might seem like a considerable difference. To me, it doesn't, and we seem to be about the same size.

Wow, I was under the impression that only theropods had feathers. Neato

There's also Tianyulong and Psittacosaurus among ornithischians with feather-like structures. And of course pterosaurs. It looks like all ornithodirans started out with feathers and then many lineages lost them on most of their bodies (like sauropods, hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, and ceratosaurians). We also know of many species hat are only a little bit feathered (like Psittacosaurus), feathered on the body but not the tail or legs (Kulindadromeus, Juravenator), and feathered on the top but not on the underside (Ornithomimus, tyrannosaurids...?). And everything in between. Even Yutyrannus had scale impressions on the underside of the base of the tail.

People act like feathering is all or nothing, but even just in the few fossils we have, we see feathers of every kind in every arrangement in nearly every ornithodiran group, and many unfeathered or mostly unfeathered lineages in the non-maniraptoran groups. We're so stuck on modern birds, which display the unique maniraptoran arrangement, that it's hard to accept the kind of variety we're finding in non-maniraptoran feathering.

What this is also showing us is that, while phylogenetic bracing can tell us whether an animal had feathered ancestors and therefore the genes for growing feathers, outside of Maniraptora it can't do a very good job of predicting if an animal had feathers, how much, and what arrangement.

Yeah but 2 inches wouldn't be 1/5th of your total height.

I knew pterosaurs had feathers, I should've been more specific with my post. I meant to say "I was under the impression that theropods were the only dinosaurs that have feathers" . Were there any non-theropods that had a significant amount of feathering? You've got me curious now :p

[Balaur]

Well, pterosaurs didn't have true feathers, they had pycnofibers. Tianyulong also has a considerable amount of fuzz (even quills).

[Loxodon]

Were there any non-theropods that had a significant amount of feathering? You've got me curious now :p

Yes, Kulindadromeus was almost entirely covered in fuzz, except for the tail, which was scaly, and Tianyulong also had an extensive covering, though it was less dense. There is also an unpublished specimen of Psittacosaurus which allegedly shows quills all over the body, not just the tail.

[Balaur]

Were there any non-theropods that had a significant amount of feathering? You've got me curious now :p

Yes, Kulindadromeus was almost entirely covered in fuzz, except for the tail, which was scaly, and Tianyulong also had an extensive covering, though it was less dense. There is also an unpublished specimen of Psittacosaurus which allegedly shows quills all over the body, not just the tail.

That Psittacosaurus specimen with the body quills was a juvenile if I recall correctly, right?

[Loxodon]

That Psittacosaurus specimen with the body quills was a juvenile if I recall correctly, right?

It has not been published, so I am not sure if we actually know. What significance would this have even if it was though? Ontogenetic integument-loss is not presently viewed as likely by most working paleontologists.

[Plasticbeast95]

Phylogenetic bracketing indicates that fuzz may be ancestral to all ornithodirans, or at the least all dinosaurs. If this is the case, early sauropods would have had fuzz no matter what, the real question is when or if they all lost it. My presumption would be that the majority of the covering was lost fairly early on, since primitive dinofuzz was more like fur than feathers, and as such may have been problematic for larger animals. On top of this though, I would speculate and say that it is not wholly unreasonable, though also not necessarily likely, that at least some lineages of more derived sauropods retained limited coverings of fuzz in some regions.

Again I ask, proof?

First two words in his statement. Phylogenetic bracketing.

Which is all fine and good for Theropods, but there is no solid proof of sauropod dinofuzz. Find me some fossil evidence, and then I will believe.

[Yutyrannus]

First two words in his statement. Phylogenetic bracketing.

Which is all fine and good for Theropods, but there is no solid proof of sauropod dinofuzz. Find me some fossil evidence, and then I will believe.

Feathers are known in both theropods and ornithischians, this means that feathers evolved before the split between saurischians and ornithischians. It seems likely that sauropods lost their feathers, but basal sauropodomorphs almost certainly had them.

[Plasticbeast95]

First two words in his statement. Phylogenetic bracketing.

Which is all fine and good for Theropods, but there is no solid proof of sauropod dinofuzz. Find me some fossil evidence, and then I will believe.

Feathers are known in both theropods and ornithischians, this means that feathers evolved before the split between saurischians and ornithischians. It seems likely that sauropods lost their feathers, but basal sauropodomorphs almost certainly had them.

that's all fine and good, but I'm going to wait for some physical evidence before I believe, ok?

[Loxodon]

that's all fine and good, but I'm going to wait for some physical evidence before I believe, ok?

Physical evidence for what? We know that both ornithischians and theropods had integument, meaning that fuzz of some sort was almost certainly ancestral to Dinosauria. This would mean that early sauropods would have fuzz of some sort, there is no way around it. Whether later sauropods retained it is of course up for debate, but why are you challenging the phylogenetic bracket in the context of sauropod integument, yet support it when used within theropoda?