Dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures

[Born Of Cold Light]

I knew about the utahraptor, but not the dakotaraptor.  I do think it's a shame that none of these species could actually fly; I mean, imagine seeing a flock of raptors?

[Vertigo]

They're a bit big for it! Their ancestors could probably fly or glide though, and the dromaeosaur family does include Microraptorinae, which contained animals that likely had better aerial ability than Archaeopteryx. Some microraptorines were fairly large by birdy standards, their biggest known flier was around eagle-size.

[DoomRulz]

Emily Willoughby's second rendition

This is the trouble with speculative paleontology. Some artists really go overboard with feathers. Based on what we know of plumage in other maniraptorans, I can't accept the renderings that make them look 100% like birds. It looks unrealistic.

On the flying point, I thought the prevailing theory was that the feathers on the arms were used as a way to balance themselves as they ran?

[Vertigo]

The plumage configuration fits with what we know about dromaeosaurs (see Zhenyuanlong in particular) - pennaceous fans on the wings and posterior tail, downy fluff over most of the body, bare or scaled feet and frontal snout. There's a lot of room for artistic interpretation with dinofuzz - you could draw the various elements as shorter or longer, smoother or shaggier/ruffled, and obviously there's a lot of scope to explore with colour. Emily Willoughby likes to convey a particularly avian look in those respects, but her work is extremely well-researched and generally accurate.


Dromaeosaur wings were probably inherited from a flying/gliding ancestor, which is indicated by the half-moon-shaped wrist bones that allowed them to flex the hand back nearly against the forearm, their very close relationship with other fliers like avialans and scansoriopterygids, and the fact that the mostly-flying microraptorines are among the more basal known members of the family.

The wings weren't vestigial at all on the flightless species though, so yes, they had some non-flying benefit. They were definitely used for brooding nests - the parent sat in the middle of the nest, with the wing feathers covering the eggs to regulate their temperature. We know they did this, because fossils have been found of brooding dinosaurs.
Moving into more speculative territory, they also could have flapped the wings to increase jump height, or propel them faster and more easily up inclined surfaces (which chicks do today). When held horizontally, they could have had a parachute effect to allow them to drop from greater heights (basal oviraptorosaur Protarchaeopteryx is thought to have done this), and yup, could have been used for a balancing effect when running or standing on struggling prey.

[DoomRulz]

The plumage configuration fits with what we know about dromaeosaurs (see Zhenyuanlong in particular) - pennaceous fans on the wings and posterior tail, downy fluff over most of the body, bare or scaled feet and frontal snout. There's a lot of room for artistic interpretation with dinofuzz - you could draw the various elements as shorter or longer, smoother or shaggier/ruffled, and obviously there's a lot of scope to explore with colour. Emily Willoughby likes to convey a particularly avian look in those respects, but her work is extremely well-researched and generally accurate.

I'll take your word for it but it still seems overdone in this case. In regards to the "mostly-flying microraptorines", where does Yi Qi fit into that picture?

[Vertigo]

Yi qi's a scansoriopterygid, more basal than dromaeosaurs but probably further along the avian line than oviraptorosaurs.

[Born Of Cold Light]

They're a bit big for it! Their ancestors could probably fly or glide though, and the dromaeosaur family does include Microraptorinae, which contained animals that likely had better aerial ability than Archaeopteryx. Some microraptorines were fairly large by birdy standards, their biggest known flier was around eagle-size.

Yeah, they'd need some pretty big wings.  I hadn't heard of microraptors before; looking them up, they look pretty creepy.

My personal favorite prehistoric animals are the ancient crocodilians, which seem like creatures dragged up from hell:



The boar crocs in particular look like Satan's hunting hounds:

[DoomRulz]

http://www.eartharchives.org/articles/meet-the-first-known-marine-reptile-with-a-sieve-for-a-mouth/

For the first time ever, paleontologists have found evidence for a filter-feeding marine reptile. The animal, a plesiosaur, is hardly a new find but one that has been sitting right under our noses for quite a while.

[The Alien Predator]

It's in a very early development stage, but this game looks really promising.

[windebieste]

Kaprosuchus.  Nice...  Always liked that crocodile. 

It almost made an appearance in 'Primal Carnage'.  Almost. 


'Primal Carnage'  boarcroc, being modeled on the Wild Safari figure, Rico.  He was named after the crocodile that appears in the Canadian animated TV series, 'Life's a Zoo'.

3D artist Kevin Bryant worked on what was intended to become the player character model for the Kapro.  Interestingly, he was working from a number of sources to get the morphology correct.  You can see he's a stickler for detail.  On his right monitor he's using real crocodile images as reference for the skin.  On his desk is a Wild Safari kaprosuchus he's using to get the other details correct. 

There's a couple interesting points about that little miniature kapro that he's using to model his character.  Firstly, the figure's sculpt is clearly based on the Paul Sereno sketch posted above.  It's an absolutely fabulous figure.  Secondly, it was lent to him by myself for the purpose of modelling the character.   I was working on site in Las Vegas on 'Primal Carnage' and 'Primal Carnage - Genesis' and got to hang out with Kevin and his fiance, Michelle, quite a bit.  They were a great pair to be around and I enjoyed their company a lot. 

By the way, Keven owns a copy of 'Giger's Necronomicon' signed by the Author.  Well, he didn't just sign it, he wrote a paragraph or two inside the front of Kevin's copy.  Was sooo cool to see it. 

-Windebieste.

[Vertigo]

Huge patch of preserved Triceratops skin has been discovered:


^ This is a mould of the skin sample, so is inverted. Scale is accurate though.


^ This is how the skin appears from the outside.

So, unusually vast and well-defined scales (most dinosaur scales are tiny), some of which have raised nodules in the middle.

Here's Mark Witton's take on the new find:



...Along with an article on the subject of dinosaur scales.

[The Alien Predator]

That is a truly fascinating discovery!

Thanks for the news, Vertigo.

[DoomRulz]

So where does this place the idea of quills on a Trike?

[Vertigo]

It certainly doesn't add any more weight to it. Quills were inferred from Psittacosaurus, which was roughly ancestral to Triceratops and had dense bristles around the top of its tail, but Triceratops' skin doesn't look anything like that of its little predecessor. Dinofuzz grew directly from the folicle, and is never known to have formed in the middle of a scale like Triceratops' nipple nodules, so the structures are almost certainly unrelated.

I'm not sure if any of this sample covered the upper tail. If it did, that'd be definite confirmation of a quill-free Triceratops as far as I'm concerned. There's also a possibility that the nodules could have been longer in life, and worn down in decomposition, but as I mentioned, they'd still be very unlikely to be related to Psittacosaurus quills.

[Born Of Cold Light]

I have to say, I'm kind of warming up to the idea of raptors with feathers; it kind of gives them the appearance of monster birds.  I'm actually somewhat incorporating the design into an alien species that I'm creating for a short story.