Feathers, quills and mesozoic thrills

[ZoPteryx]

While flipping through that new dinosaur art book (a must buy! ),  I noticed that certain artists give their dinos scutes on their feet like most birds and others do not.  What evidence is their either way, especially among dinos far from birds?

[wings]

While flipping through that new dinosaur art book (a must buy! ),  I noticed that certain artists give their dinos scutes on their feet like most birds and others do not.  What evidence is their either way, especially among dinos far from birds?

The simple answer is none. We do occasionally get scale patterns on the sole of the feet from their footprints or skin impression surrounding their feet but none of them actually reported to have clear defined "scutes".

[Gryphoceratops]

From what I heard the triceratops specimen that preserved some skin (the same specimen with those little "nipple" shaped scales on its back that you see all over recent ceratopsid paleo art) had some rectangular scales on its toes/fingers.  Not exactly like those on a bird's, but scales none the less.  To my knowledge a paper describing the specimen hasn't been published yet. 

[John]

From what I heard the triceratops specimen that preserved some skin (the same specimen with those little "nipple" shaped scales on its back that you see all over recent ceratopsid paleo art) had some rectangular scales on its toes/fingers.  Not exactly like those on a bird's, but scales none the less.  To my knowledge a paper describing the specimen hasn't been published yet.

Would you happen to know if the impressions show it to not have nails on it's fourth and fifth outer digits on it's hand like other archosaurs?
It would not surprise me in the least if it did match other archosaurs in this regard.

[Gryphoceratops]

From what I heard the triceratops specimen that preserved some skin (the same specimen with those little "nipple" shaped scales on its back that you see all over recent ceratopsid paleo art) had some rectangular scales on its toes/fingers.  Not exactly like those on a bird's, but scales none the less.  To my knowledge a paper describing the specimen hasn't been published yet.

Would you happen to know if the impressions show it to not have nails on it's fourth and fifth outer digits on it's hand like other archosaurs?
It would not surprise me in the least if it did match other archosaurs in this regard.

Hmm good question never thought to ask.  I will ask and report back here!

For the record btw, I was first given this information by a friend/mentor from my old college who is a paleontologist who got it from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.  The specimen itself was collected by the Black Hills Institute. 

UPDATE: He said he doesn't think any nails preserved on the mummy.  If they did, they haven't released information about it yet. 

[wings]

Would you happen to know if the impressions show it to not have nails on it's fourth and fifth outer digits on it's hand like other archosaurs?
It would not surprise me in the least if it did match other archosaurs in this regard.

Not sure whether this is the norm for archosaurs since we don't really have much to compare with (Crocodilians and aves). Here is a paper on footprints which shows at least some thyreophorans had claws on digit 1 to 4 (http://www.scielo.br/pdf/aabc/v83n1/v83n1a15.pdf, Figure 4).

[John]

Would you happen to know if the impressions show it to not have nails on it's fourth and fifth outer digits on it's hand like other archosaurs?
It would not surprise me in the least if it did match other archosaurs in this regard.

Not sure whether this is the norm for archosaurs since we don't really have much to compare with (Crocodilians and aves). Here is a paper on footprints which shows at least some thyreophorans had claws on digit 1 to 4 (http://www.scielo.br/pdf/aabc/v83n1/v83n1a15.pdf, Figure 4).

This is good to know,thanks!

[wings]

Apart from the above paper, there seems to be more examples however none of these are published (see http://dinosaurpalaeo.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/more-of-urzeit-park/, just go straight down to the comments).