Tyrannosaurid skin impressions

[Dobber]

Okay that was an interesting post, but then I went and read Duane Nash's post on this issue afterwards: http://antediluviansalad.blogspot.com/2017/06/an-issue-of-scale.html

The more I read on these patches (aside from looking at the images of them) the more I take issue with them being scales, or at least scales in the traditional sense. I just want more data to be honest, though I suppose that will take a lot of luck in finding more specimens of this nature. Quite frankly I'm not really sure what to think what these patches are, or even what T. rex possibly looked like at this point, beyond its skeleton. Thankfully I'm not too terribly emotionally invested in any particular speculative reconstruction, etc, in case any new data does come to light (which is the same approach I have currently in regards to the data on these patches).

Just read that too. Very good points, made. Also those "scales" are incredibly small even by exitant lizard standards...especially on such a Large animal like Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Chris

[Neosodon]

I disagree somewhat with Nash. Carunculate skin has space in between the bumps. The T. Rex scale impressions do not. Also carunculate skin is more fragile than scales and would give the animal less color complexity and the ability to have a camouflaged pattern. At least I'm not aware of anything like that ever happening with carnculate skin. T. Rex being covered with small scales is the probable scenario. But I would like to hear an explanation as to why the scales would be so small. I like his idea of beefy Tyrannosaurids. One of the best explanations as to why they lost their feathers.

"The return of the scaly T. rex to modern paleo-art": http://reptilis.net/2017/06/19/the-return-of-the-scaly-t-rex-to-modern-paleo-art/

"Another important aspect to consider is that the authors took their work a step further and performed an ancestral character reconstruction based on known integument distributions in tyrannosauroids. They found that scaly tyrannosaurids (i.e., devoid of any filaments) have a 97% probability of being true, despite an 89% probability that tyrannosauroids started off filamented."

Ok, that is pretty bold. I'm open and actually prefer the idea of a completely scaly T. Rex but earlier I believed it to be about a 40% chance. I like feathered dinosaurs but T. Rex just doesn't look like the type that should be feathered. Watching all these scientists having a meltdown and coming to all of these polar opposite conclusions just goes to show how fragile are understanding of dinosaurs really is.

Before anyone accuses me of gloating, I actually have a major disappointment with all of this. The tiny size of the scales will make it nearly impossible to draw them and future T. Rex models will not be able to have them either.

[Takama]

Frankly, the more i see it. the more im starting to belive in a Scaly T.rex again. I plan on Commisioning a Scaly Replacement for my Recently made Featherd T.Rex.

I am just suprised at how bloody fast all of this is happening.

[Dobber]

The Large King T-Rex statue by SideShow now looks even better. It is an enormous piece, to me, and has very few visible scales on it. It looks more like it has skin...which is what it's looking like the Rex may have had.

I absolutely loved the idea of a feathered Rex of some sort, and even grew to prefer it....but evidence is evidence. I go where the science goes. I do agree with what several people here have pointed out about the misleading nature of ALOT of these news titles, this does NOT bring back the old school JP scaled T-Rex. Really this is something different. Granted there is no direct evidence of filament on Tyrannosaurids yet, but these impressions are SOOOOO small, with even smaller scales, on such large animals, that I won't discount the possibility of some filament on the body somewhere. I have a feeling that the Rex may have been very strange looking indeed.

Chris

[Nanuqsaurus]

So uhhm... What is Saurian going to do now? Will they make a new Tyrannosaurus model for their game?

Also, what am I going to do now? I was just having a good time collecting and drawing feathered Tyrannosaurs.

[suspsy]

I fear you have failed to take your own advice about making a bigger deal out of minutiae. It doesn't matter how many examples you present; the fact of the matter is that Brusatte's choice of writing style has absolutely zero bearing on the topic at hand. And that is my final word on that, as I am finding this exchange boring and pointless. Let's all get back to discussing integument.

You're right about 1 thing: It IS boring & pointless discussing science w/someone who ignores evidence. That someone probably shouldn't be participating in science forums, but there's nothing I can do about that, so I'll just ignore them. Consider yourself ignored.

I see. You're accusing me of ignoring evidence because I pointed out the simple fact that Brusatte's writing style in some of his books has absolutely no bearing on his current observations about the Bell study, and the simple fact that mainstream media sources have indeed been overselling the 100% scaly aspect in their reporting. Shoot, you agreed with me on that second part.

I'm going to try and explain this one more time, because I feel that we're arguing heatedly over something that is utterly miniscule and irrelevant to the main topic. Yes, Brusatte once exaggerated the size of Velociraptor (which probably was not intentional on his part), but that doesn't somehow mean that he's not allowed to call out other people on their errors. Pretty much every paleontologist in the world has made errors at one time or another in their careers. No one is perfect. As for his use of dramatic prose, it's your prerogative to personally not like it, but that doesn't mean it's a valid argument against his credibility. He's far from the only paleontologist who chooses to write that way. And how he writes about the predatory nature of dromaeosaurs is a far, far cry from say, Gemma Tarlach of Discover Magazine raving about how feathered depictions of T. rex have left her "emotionally scarred." Apples and oranges, as I said at the start. Or different leagues, to use another analogy.

So uhhm... What is Saurian going to do now? Will they make a new Tyrannosaurus model for their game?

Also, what am I going to do now? I was just having a good time collecting and drawing feathered Tyrannosaurs.

I'd just go right ahead and keep on doing it. As many experts have pointed out, this isn't the final, definitive word on the matter. Science isn't infalliable (if it was, it wouldn't be science!). This study, like any other, could well end up being debunked in the future by a new discovery. As it stands, the feathered T. rexes from CollectA and Safari probably are too shaggy, but sparser depictions like the ones by Luis V. Rey, Julius Csotonyi, and Peter Schouten are still firmly within the realm of possibility.

I should probably update my Safari review to reflect this.

[stargatedalek]

I don't see why they're "too shaggy". Ostriches have huge bald patches along their flanks but even seeing one in person you wouldn't notice unless the ostrich deliberately puffed out its feathers to expose them. The Safari and CollectA Tyrannosaurus are fine, it's plenty possible for long feathers to visibly obscure bare patches for temperature regulation.

[suspsy]

I don't see why they're "too shaggy". Ostriches have huge bald patches along their flanks but even seeing one in person you wouldn't notice unless the ostrich deliberately puffed out its feathers to expose them. The Safari and CollectA Tyrannosaurus are fine, it's plenty possible for long feathers to visibly obscure bare patches for temperature regulation.

That is a salient point, yes.

[Faelrin]

So uhhm... What is Saurian going to do now? Will they make a new Tyrannosaurus model for their game?

Also, what am I going to do now? I was just having a good time collecting and drawing feathered Tyrannosaurs.

They won't be doing updating to any of their models until after early access is released. Going off a particular comment on the kickstarter page, it probably won't be updated until it's implemented as a playable. Same for the other dinosaurs at this point.
Here's a post on facebook showing what they might change later on: https://www.facebook.com/sauriangame/photos/a.215488338623607.1073741833.200506546788453/699275380244898/?type=3&theater

Right now I'm thinking these samples are skin, or just a different type of scales (more like reticulae and less traditional reptile scales), due to its small size on something so large. Still, I'll wait for more data before I draw any more conclusions on what these could be.

[Sim]

I don't see why they're "too shaggy". Ostriches have huge bald patches along their flanks but even seeing one in person you wouldn't notice unless the ostrich deliberately puffed out its feathers to expose them. The Safari and CollectA Tyrannosaurus are fine, it's plenty possible for long feathers to visibly obscure bare patches for temperature regulation.

Isn't what you're saying only applicable to pennaceous feathers or large wing feathers, rather than the filamentous feathers of tyrannosauroids which wouldn't have functioned much differently to hair?  The large bare patches on the sides of ostriches are covered by their large pennaceous wing feathers.  No tyrannosauroid is known to have wing feathers, and pennaceous feathers aren't known to have evolved until Pennaraptora which is much more 'derived' than Tyrannosauroidea.  I don't see any feathers on the CollectA and Safari feathered T. rex figures that would work in the way you described.

Also, as Matthew Martyniuk mentioned in the comments section on that blog post by Mark Witton, ostriches "have a seemingly dense coat of insulation but those are just a relatively few, large feathers covering much of the body compared to the number of hairs in a comparably voluminous mammal."  Comparing the feathers of an ostrich to those of the CollectA and Safari T. rex figures, it can be seen that proportionately, with the exception of the large feathers on the Safari T. rex's neck, these two figures are covered in feathers that are higher in number and much smaller than an ostrich's.  So the feathering of these two T. rex figures is much denser than an ostrich's.

It's also worth considering that an ostrich is MUCH smaller than Tyrannosaurus.  And an ostrich already has large featherless areas to help it lose heat.

[Simon]

I don't see why they're "too shaggy". Ostriches have huge bald patches along their flanks but even seeing one in person you wouldn't notice unless the ostrich deliberately puffed out its feathers to expose them. The Safari and CollectA Tyrannosaurus are fine, it's plenty possible for long feathers to visibly obscure bare patches for temperature regulation.

Isn't what you're saying only applicable to pennaceous feathers or large wing feathers, rather than the filamentous feathers of tyrannosauroids which wouldn't have functioned much differently to hair?  The large bare patches on the sides of ostriches are covered by their large pennaceous wing feathers.  No tyrannosauroid is known to have wing feathers, and pennaceous feathers aren't known to have evolved until Pennaraptora which is much more 'derived' than Tyrannosauroidea.  I don't see any feathers on the CollectA and Safari feathered T. rex figures that would work in the way you described.

Also, as Matthew Martyniuk mentioned in the comments section on that blog post by Mark Witton, ostriches "have a seemingly dense coat of insulation but those are just a relatively few, large feathers covering much of the body compared to the number of hairs in a comparably voluminous mammal."  Comparing the feathers of an ostrich to those of the CollectA and Safari T. rex figures, it can be seen that proportionately, with the exception of the large feathers on the Safari T. rex's neck, these two figures are covered in feathers that are higher in number and much smaller than an ostrich's.  So the feathering of these two T. rex figures is much denser than an ostrich's.

It's also worth considering that an ostrich is MUCH smaller than Tyrannosaurus.  And an ostrich already has large featherless areas to help it lose heat.

Of course, the Ostrich is also a modern bird, not an elephant-sized Cretaceous theropod. 

But there is an old legal maxim that states "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", so the fact that no TRex feather evidence has yet been found doesn't prove it did not have feathers.

However, it does make a scaly reconstruction the "safer" and more likely the accurate one.   

[ZoPteryx]

Okay, finally had time and proper internet connection to read the paper and supplement.  I've come off a little more optimistic about the results than I was previously.  The scales* from the ventral and rear portions of the animal look a little more polygonal than they had in my tiny cell phone photo, and look like a match in form to the organized scales from the flank of Albertosaurus shown in the supplement.  Their unarranged nature on the Tyrannosaurus could be attributed to taphonomy.  The alleged neck scales, on the other hand, don't match this morphology.  To my eye, it more closely resembles a pattern that can be taken by wrinkled skin (or shriveled as this case may be).



I'm not suggesting T. rex had a grouse-like display patch, but you can see the similarities in skin texture.  A brief google search revealed some other instances of similar looking skin that would otherwise be feathered, such as the mummified moa head shown in Nash's post and the feather tracts on the flanks of turkeys.  I'd be curious if CT scans could pick up feather roots in the rex's fossilized skin.

My three main gripes then are not so much regarding the results, but the research.
1)  Taphonomy is of the utmost importance for these sort of specimens, yet it's mostly ignored here.  Perhaps it's forthcoming in a description of the skeleton.
2)  The structures appear to have been assumed to be scales right off the bat based on gross similarities.  The burden of proof is to falsify the preexisting probability of feathers, and it failed to do so convincingly.  Aren't there keratin chemical trace tests that can determine if structures are derived from skin, scales, or feathers?
3)  Finally, as Cau pointed out, their statistical probability analysis treated scales and feathers as if they were mutually exclusive, which is definitely not the case.

All that said, I think the evidence, for now, should be in favor of tyrannosaurid stomachs and possibly hindquarters being covered in tiny scale-like structures.  Imho, the jury should still be out on the neck and the rest of the animal until further testing is done or more specimens are found.

*As the authors mention, it's quite possible these "scales" are actually derived from feathers.  That could explain their rather amorphous but typically oblong shapes.  This also would mean that even this "scaly" Tyrannosaurus is still actually covered in feathers! 

[WarrenJB]

Okay, finally had time and proper internet connection

You and me both. I hit 'post' in this thread yesterday, then couldn't get back into the site for the rest of the day. Good thing I copied my reply first.

Anyway...

What Sim said. I'll add that I recently had my first attempt at bird ringing, which involved blowing on breast feathers to reveal brood patches. It surprised me that seemingly fully-feathered birds looked like tiny, bald supermarket chickens from neck to vent, on the application of a little puff. YMMV, but I have doubts that simple, hairlike feathers would conceal that so easily. (I like what... I think it was Martin Martyniuk who said it... describing modern, pennaceous feathers as a dynamic, reactive shell around the bird, in a way that hair couldn't quite match.)

Also, to reiterate a point that's been made a few times before: these 'scaly' patches aren't just on flanks (or brood patches). They're on flanks, necks, tails, over the hips... If tyrannosaurids had select but dense patches of hairlike feathers wherever those preserved patches weren't, I get a mental image of a kid who found their parent's electric clippers and decided to play haircuts.

I'm with Dobber, too:

I absolutely loved the idea of a feathered Rex of some sort, and even grew to prefer it....but evidence is evidence. I go where the science goes.

I also agree that this doesn't mean Tyrannosaurus goes right back to being a 'tyrant lizard', so to speak; that I don't believe these impressions are directly analogous to squamate or crocodylian scales*; that Suspy's example of Peter Schouten's elephant-like smattering of fibres looks good to me. But when this article dropped and l came here to see the reaction, some posters seemed like they were a step or two away from declaring 'science ruined dinosaurs'! Its calmed a bit since the subject's been beaten out, and the sensationalist headlines are dismissed as the clickbait they are, but still...

But there is an old legal maxim that states "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", so the fact that no TRex feather evidence has yet been found doesn't prove it did not have feathers.

I'm not picking on you for this, Simon, I've seen that line plenty of times before; but most of those times I think "absence of evidence doesn't amount to a whole heap of evidence either". This is especially true if it originated as a legal maxim, but it can come across as the motto of special pleading.

* That Reptilis article is convincing, but I agree with ZoPteryx that the tyrannosaur scales don't look quite 'machine stamped' enough.

[Balaur]

Welp... a lot of discussion about this going on. I am writing a big response to this (and the Daspletosaurus horneri) paper(s) which should be out in the next few days.

[WarrenJB]

Another thing about the Reptilis article is in arguing against heavily innervated, sensitive snouts. I won't say 'I knew it all along!' but it did cross my mind how that might tally with evidence of intraspecific face-biting. With plenty of sources talking about how animals develop behaviours to try to avoid injury in intraspecific combat (with exceptions), you'd have thought it might be especially true if it potentially hurt more than usual.

[Balaur]

http://amateurpalaeontologist.blogspot.com/2017/07/evolution-and-trends-in-tyrannosauroid.html

Here is my post I finished two days ago. Basically summing up my thoughts.

[suspsy]

http://amateurpalaeontologist.blogspot.com/2017/07/evolution-and-trends-in-tyrannosauroid.html

Here is my post I finished two days ago. Basically summing up my thoughts.

This is a really good essay. Would you be okay if I incorporated it into my review of the Wild Safari T. rex?

[Jose S.M.]

That was very interesting to read Balaur, thanks for sharing it.

[Dinoguy2]

Okay, finally had time and proper internet connection to read the paper and supplement.  I've come off a little more optimistic about the results than I was previously.

I don't mean on pick on your post, but this is something I've been seeing a lot of lately so I wanted to comment on it...

Why optimistic? Is it some kind of problem if T. rex had zero feathers after all? Being wrong in science is a good thing, because it means we learned something. An attitude I'm seeing a lot on Facebook about this paper is almost like "oh no! We rubbed feathered T. rex in all those awesomebro faces and now we might be wrong and it's going to bite us in the rear!"

To all the feathered dinosaur proponents who went around saying "dinosaurs are cool no matter how they look", time to take their (our) own advice!

This thing about "well maybe the feathers were just in all the little margins we haven't found impressions for yet" is just the God of the Gaps fallacy. I think that Peter Schouten tyrannosaur looks pretty good. You could probably get away with a bit more feathers than that, but not much.

[ZoPteryx]

Okay, finally had time and proper internet connection to read the paper and supplement.  I've come off a little more optimistic about the results than I was previously.

I don't mean on pick on your post, but this is something I've been seeing a lot of lately so I wanted to comment on it...

Why optimistic? Is it some kind of problem if T. rex had zero feathers after all? Being wrong in science is a good thing, because it means we learned something. An attitude I'm seeing a lot on Facebook about this paper is almost like "oh no! We rubbed feathered T. rex in all those awesomebro faces and now we might be wrong and it's going to bite us in the rear!"

To all the feathered dinosaur proponents who went around saying "dinosaurs are cool no matter how they look", time to take their (our) own advice!

This thing about "well maybe the feathers were just in all the little margins we haven't found impressions for yet" is just the God of the Gaps fallacy. I think that Peter Schouten tyrannosaur looks pretty good. You could probably get away with a bit more feathers than that, but not much.

No worries!    What I meant was I was happy to find that the research based on the new hard evidence was much better than I had previously assumed based on a quick skim on my phone's tiny screen.  The many negative knee-jerk reactions elsewhere on the web probably played some influence too, unfortunately.  That said, I still would've liked to have seen a little more due diligence with regards to the topics I listed above. 

Personally, although I'm a big feather fan, I think the coolest looking T. rex would be one with big crocodile-like scutes, but I'm 99% sure that's not going to happen.