Finally, You Can See Dinosaurs in All Their Feathered Glory

[sauroid]

A new exhibit in New York challenges the popular view of dinos as green, scaly beasts and showcases their links to today's birds.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160405-dinosaurs-feathers-birds-museum-new-york-science/

[Silvanusaurus]

This sounds great, wish I could see it... it's a shame about this:

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Tianyulong is feathered now?

[sauroid]

Tianyulong is feathered now?

thats what also surprised me. i thought it was just quilled like other smaller ornithopods, although the pic looks like it has primitive/protofeathers only.

[postsaurischian]

Tianyulong is feathered now?

It might have been feathered. Diplodocus might have had 3 elephant-like trunks ... we just don't know.


BTW.: They're talking about Yutyrannus huali, the "beautiful feathered tyrant" ..... I must say this is the ugliest illustration of a Yutyrannus I've ever seen. I see no beauty .

[Chad]

I went to this a couple of weeks ago and it was pretty great (especially in conjunction with the Titanosaur casr which has to be seen to believed because it is huge, about twice the size of the Apatosaur in the next room over.) There's more speculation than you'd normally get in an exhibit but I'm perfectly fine with that. The exhibit is the AMNH's hypothesis for how these dinosaurs looked. It's speculative, but it's based on the data available to them now. It's perfectly ok to disagree with it, of course, but for me I appreciate the museum expressing a point of view about it even as I question how accurate it really is. I think the museum experience is more interesting when you're confronted with an argument. There are also casts of many skeletons so you still get the traditional natural history museum experience, as well. They also made mention of Yi qi but, since I imagine this exhibit had been in the works for a while, it was obviously impossible for them to get a cast of it in time for this.

[tyrantqueen]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/2016/04/01/feathered-dinosaur/01-feathered-dinosaur.ngsversion.1459540952512.jpg

That...doesn't look good.

[postsaurischian]

 

[Patrx]

Diplodocus might have had 3 elephant-like trunks ... we just don't know.

Actually, the trunk hypothesis has been pretty thoroughly discredited, but your point is well-made all the same

While this is definitely an important and interesting exhibit, that Yutyrannus has some serious issues. Happily, most of the other reconstructions featured in the article are quite nice, particularly the Tianyulong and the Citipati. From the sound of things, the folks behind the exhibit are pretty passionate about getting people past the scaly past and into the feathery future, and that's way cool.

"...many scientists now believe that modern birds are living dinosaurs."
"Many scientists now believe that the earth is round."
"Many doctors now believe that copious blood loss is bad for your health."

[Dinoguy2]

Tianyulong is feathered now?

There are undescribed specimens showing this level of feThering. The sculptor, Jason Brougham, showed some pics on his Facebook a while back.

Goes to show that having one specimen with feathers is pretty much worthless in determining how it looked in life. You need a bunch to see what taphonomy is hiding.

[MLMjp]

Yutyrannus huali??

More like Yutyrannus abominatiens .

Its is great that finally we have a proper exposition with accurate feathered dinosaurs. But IMO I think they have gone a bit too far with that Tianyulong and its feather covering.

Tianyulong is feathered now?

There are undescribed specimens showing this level of feThering. The sculptor, Jason Brougham, showed some pics on his Facebook a while back.

Goes to show that having one specimen with feathers is pretty much worthless in determining how it looked in life. You need a bunch to see what taphonomy is hiding.

Really???
Well in that case don´t pay attention to my first comment.
But still, does not look like it is a bit too much?

Could somebody tell me more about those undescribed specimens?

[Patrx]

Tianyulong is feathered now?

There are undescribed specimens showing this level of feThering. The sculptor, Jason Brougham, showed some pics on his Facebook a while back.

Goes to show that having one specimen with feathers is pretty much worthless in determining how it looked in life. You need a bunch to see what taphonomy is hiding.

Whoah, cool! You don't happen to be able to share said pictures here, perchance?

[stargatedalek]

What bothers me most is the inconsistency of this exhibit.



Here you have Tianyulong, Tianyulong (while definitely possessing some degree of soft integument) can be restored essentially however the artist chooses, from a light dusting to this Dromaeosaur-esque coating. This degree of feathering isn't by any means inaccurate nor overly speculative so there's nothing wrong with this reconstruction in itself. The problem is that it sets the bar rather high in terms of how liberal we expect this entire gallery to be. I doubt it could pronate its hands as shown but Heterodontosaurs are not a group I know much about.



Beyond the fact reconstructions like this are what make people hate the idea of feathered dinosaurs this Yutyrannus inner finger attaches to the wrist and not the hand and those individual feathers seem like they would be several feet long when scaled up.


Citipati is pretty good in general, but the fingers are bare.



I'm not our resident Psittacosaurus expert but I think I would recall if the toes were so evenly spaced like that. The quills are also a lot less extensive than what the only quilled specimen we have shows, but I suppose this could vary between species (and the large cheek spines don't look familiar to me so I assume I don't recognize the species in question).


"Velociraptor Mongoliensis The bird-like traits of this theropod include hinged ankles, swivel-jointed wrists, a wishbone, and forward-facing toes. " The description on this one is half as disappointing as the model. The wings are incomplete, there's no alula, the fingers are bare, the skull is the wrong shape, and the feathering on the head doesn't make sense. Why would the upper lip be feathered but the top of the head and the face be bald?

National Geographic is often looked to by the layman audience as a pinnacle of scientific understanding and yet they are so often so far behind the information, or just outright misinterpreting it.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Would be interested in seeing said pictures for Tianyulong as well......as for the psittacosaurid, it should have four toes, one raised above to a small degree, and the others while regularly spaced would be different lengths. The jugals or cheek horns are within possibility, various species possessed smaller or larger Jugals, which may have been a female vs male trait possibly. Mine for instance has very pronounced jugal horns ...if the specimen pictured is a full on adult the jugals would likely be that large.

[Dinoguy2]

Just went back and checked, Jason posted a pic of an unfeathered undescribed specimen, but some people in that thread mentioned more complete ones. Tom Holtz has mentioned extremely fluffy specimens in the past as well. Hopefully some of these will be described soon, by my count there are at least three undescribed specimens that are more complete than the holotype floating around.

It should be noted that at least one Caudipteryx preserves unfeathered fingers with bumpy or scaly skin but in my opinion this is probably due to decomposition of plumaceous feathers on the hand. Though I sincerely doubt a flightless dromaeosaurs would retain a distinct alula!

I think some of the weirdness of the Yutyrsnnus hand is due to the angle. Folded wrists tend to angle backward like that in birds. I'm not sure the hands of a tyrannosauroid could fold that much but I'm not aware of any studies on the topic and cartilage would increase range of motion.

[Bucklander]

This sounds great, wish I could see it... it's a shame about this:

This sounds great, wish I could see it... it's a shame about this:

Looks like the bag lady who walks around all day talking to herself and smelling of urine.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I recall Hone mentioning additional specimens of Tianyulong that had been found so I know they have to be out there....but I had heard nothing regarding integument or preservation. Excited to see them when and if they appear in a paper !!

[suspsy]

What exactly is so awful about that Yutyrannus?

[stargatedalek]

It should be noted that at least one Caudipteryx preserves unfeathered fingers with bumpy or scaly skin but in my opinion this is probably due to decomposition of plumaceous feathers on the hand. Though I sincerely doubt a flightless dromaeosaurs would retain a distinct alula!

I think some of the weirdness of the Yutyrsnnus hand is due to the angle. Folded wrists tend to angle backward like that in birds. I'm not sure the hands of a tyrannosauroid could fold that much but I'm not aware of any studies on the topic and cartilage would increase range of motion.

Caudipteryx had some sort of specialization going on with its fingers too, similar to Balaur.

I thought I recalled reading of Alula in Microraptor but I could be wrong. Even though Microraptor was a flying animal the alula is mainly used in balance so it makes sense dromaeosaurs being reliant on balance in their hunting would retain it to some degree.

I just can't see the hand as being on an angle explaining this visual. I'm talking about where the second and third digit connect being so far apart from the inner digit. It might be an illusion if the inner digit is short enough and the other two are overlapping.

[sauroid]

Even though Microraptor was a flying animal the alula is mainly used in balance so it makes sense dromaeosaurs being reliant on balance in their hunting would retain it to some degree.

werent Microraptors just gliders and not capable of true flight?