Dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures

Started by DoomRulz, Jul 10, 2008, 12:17:08 AM

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Dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures (Read 283,559 times)

DoomRulz

Quote from: Crazy Shrimp on Oct 23, 2014, 11:30:35 PM
Deinocheirus it's looked like this?


That, or it might've been completely covered in feathers!

Vertigo

One thing we do know for sure is that it had a fan of feathers at the tip of its tail, which is something I think current palaeo-art is underplaying.

The last few bones of its tail are fused together into a hyper-flexible structure called a pygostyle, which birds have (albeit right at the base, as they've lost their long tails) and a few maniraptoran dinosaurs.
The one example of ornithomimosaur feathers is inconclusive, but it looks like it was a down type of feather - more advanced than the hair-like structures of more basal coelurosaurs, but not yet possessing a central quill like dromaeosaurids and troodontids had on their tails and arms.
It's possible that ornithimimosaurs had more advanced feathers than we thought, and just haven't found them yet, but as far as we know right now, Deinocheirus probably had a massive fan of tufty down on its tail, which it could wave around in display.

As for that image's use of feathers on its arms and head, as far as I know that's entirely speculative. It has the evolutionary potential to have had down anywhere on its body, but it didn't need it, because it's a six-ton animal whose sheer size provides it with insulation. Scales would be more useful, because they function as light armour. Not to mention, as it apparently spent a lot of time splashing around in rivers, feathers get heavy when waterlogged, so would be a hindrance.

So, if it did have feathers, they would have mostly just been display structures - and possibly on its arms for brooding nests, if it did this (its size wasn't necessarily an impedement to brooding, but they may not have evolved it at that stage in the coelurosaur tree).

DoomRulz

Another water-dweller? Not saying it was like Spinosaurus, but that's news to me. When was this reported?

Vertigo

Probably not a water dweller, but evidence that it relied on waterways for its diet. Lots of fish scales found in its gut, and the study proposed that Deinocheirus was well adapted for eating slippery water plants (it may have had a giant tongue to facilitate this).
This is all stuff that's just come out from this recent study.

DoomRulz


Vertigo

Vertigo

#1160
Done a bit of reading up about sharks today, and it's been surprising, given the established dogma that they've been around, broadly similar, for 400 million years.

The 'unchanged for aeons' idea is one that's easily dismissed just by looking at the diversity of living species, which have a massive array of energetic capabilities, reproductive systems, bodyplans, sensory differences, swimming ability and environmental tolerances. Some of these traits involve massive evolutionary chains that would have to have occurred over a very long time.
I think I've ranted about this on these boards before, it's not too surprising.

Anyway, turns out, the crown group (the nearest common ancestor of all living species) only appeared in the late Triassic, making them younger than dinosaurs. Though shark-ish elasmobranchs did exist for a very long time before that, it's not technically accurate to call them sharks (not sure why it's so often used in the literature, as Mesozoic metathereans are rarely called 'marsupials' for the same reason).
Furthermore, it seems they had major physiological differences - only the crown group developed the strong, reinforced vertebra that makes them such powerful swimmers, and apparently the earlier elasmobranchs lacked the serrated teeth which makes sharks so efficient at cutting through meat, as well as the mobile jaw joints that allow sharks to open their mouths so wide. Along with rays, they also have larger brains and a better sense of smell than their immediate forebears.

The first major subdivision in modern shark groups may have happened in the Triassic, though there isn't much evidence. The smaller group contains the Hexanchiformes (six/seven-gill and frilled sharks), the Squaliformes (dogfish and sleeper sharks) and the Squatiniformes (angel sharks).
A handful of recognisable modern forms appeared in the Jurassic, such as angel sharks, but most of today's families started appearing in the Cretaceous and Cenozoic (making them younger than birds).

DoomRulz

Hand off that info to Discovery Channel so that we may have a proper shark week rather than faux docus about Megalodon still existing.

Gilfryd

PBS' Nova series had a fantastic episode on Spinosaurus last week. The big skeleton they put together at the end was beautiful.

DoomRulz

I'll look for it, thanks!

Quote from: Vertigo on Nov 10, 2014, 11:51:39 PM
Anyway, turns out, the crown group (the nearest common ancestor of all living species) only appeared in the late Triassic, making them younger than dinosaurs. Though shark-ish elasmobranchs did exist for a very long time before that, it's not technically accurate to call them sharks (not sure why it's so often used in the literature, as Mesozoic metathereans are rarely called 'marsupials' for the same reason).

There weren't any around in the Devonian?? Hm, news to me.

Vertigo

No crown-group sharks for another 140 million years, but there were elasmobranchs that could colloquially be called sharks, such as this little puppy. It's ancestral to rays as well as sharks, however.

Vertigo

Jim Kirkland is looking for help moving a Utahraptor group find. Possible evidence of pack hunting, which has never been inferred for Utahraptor (or indeed any dromaeosaur that isn't Deinonychus, as far as I know).

DoomRulz

Lol, the comments are laughable. If you don't want to donate, then just don't; asshats. I wouldn't mind donating though.

MrSpaceJockey

Dinosaur questions:
1) Did dinosaurs in different groups evolve feathers simultaneously (think mini-convergent evolution)? Or did a species like, for example, Archaeopteryx, and a feathered Tyrannosaurus share a common, feathered ancestor (and wouldn't every species in between be feathered as a result?)

2) At what point did dinosaurs evolve feathers? Would Coelophysis have had feathers (or fuzz) all the way back in the Triassic. I think it's common thinking for me to associate feathers with the Cretaceous era (Liaoning Province fossils and all those dromaeosaurs) but Jurassic theropods must have had it too, if something like Archaeopteryx evolved, right? Would Allosaurus have had feathers (or fuzz)?

3) Any herbivorous dinosaurs with feathers (which I would have to assume is due to convergent evolution or some sort)? I mean like ornithischians, not herbivorous therizinosaurs or something.  Also not including whatever the hell is on Psittacosaurus (if anyone could elaborate on that too?).

Even though I haven't posted too much here, I've always been a huge dinosaur enthusiast, and they practically got me into drawing.  I've been trying to get back into drawing them but since I'm not a huge expert but I'd like them to be as scientifically accurate as possible, that's why I've come here to ask.

Vertigo

Vertigo

#1168
Good questions, and the first two are ones that scientists are still grappling with.

1) Probably both. Feathers evolved in a gradual progression, and we see different stages of them in different families. Here's a list...


  • Spiny bristles: Tianyulong (a heterodontosaurid, which is a basal-ish ornithischian), Psittacosaurus (early ceratopsian, as you know)
  • It's complicated: Kulindadromeus (ornithischian; I'll get to this later)
  • Hair-like filaments: basal coelurosaurs, compsognathids, tyrannosauroids, therizinosaurs (possibly downy for the latter three)
  • Downy feathers: ornithomimosaurs, alvarezsaurids, oviraptorosaurs, paravians (incl. dromies and trooies)
  • Vaned feathers (usually as 'wings', sometimes as a tail fan, leg wings or head crests): oviraptorosaurs, paravians (incl. dromies and trooies), possibly ornithomimosaurs.
  • Additionally, feathers regressed into scales occasionally; all known tyrannosaurid skin has been scaly. And, obviously, different parts of an animal can have different types of integument.

The theropod progression looks pretty simple - hair-like structures appear in coelurosaurs, and become gradually more complicated in each wave of their descendants. This leaves out coelophysoids, ceratosaurs, megalosaurs and allosauroids, unless a new find reveals evidence of feathers in them (though we don't have much evidence of scales either).

Ornithischian integument is trickier. We don't know whether their structures are related to the proto-feathers seen in theropods - if they are, then bristles must have been present even in the earliest dinosaurs. To add further weight to that theory, dinosaurs' close relatives the pterosaurs were all furry, and a few other archosaurs may have been too.
But getting back on point, ornithischians show a definite preference against any type of insulation - the vast majority of their skin samples have been scaly, unlike theropods; this even includes juveniles of the fastest-growing (and therefore probably highest-metabolismed) families. Even Psittacosaurus' weird bristles would only have been for display - it's entirely possible that they evolved separately.
The real oddball is Kulindadromeus, and I'll get to that in #3.


2) Welp, looks like I've answered that. The earliest examples of feathers date back to the Late Jurassic. Interesting to note, the first trace of mammalian hair is only 15 million years earlier, but our ancestors from the earliest Triassic probably had it.


3) Okay, Kulindadromeus is a small Jurassic neornithischian, ancestral to ornithopods and hadrosaurs, and probably to marginocephalians (pachies/topsies). It will either go down in history as the watershed moment that we discovered feathers were a pervasive dinosaur trait, or a truly bizarre quirk of convergent evolution.
It has several types of integument. Firstly, scales in an unusual pattern, on its tail, feet and lower forelimbs. Second, hair-like feathers (similar to those found in basal coelurosaurs and compsognathids) over most of the rest of its body. Third, down-like feathers on its upper arms and legs. Finally, unique narrow bunches of fibre sparsely across parts of its leg.

What makes it really weird is that it seems to show advanced feathers which hadn't developed in early coelurosaurs. Surely that, at least, has to be convergent evolution. Curiously, no trace of the bristles we see in those two other ornithischians.


Anyway, hope that's been of some help.

:edit: All that trouble, and it turns out there was a much simpler chart online I could have used. Here it is (it's missing quite a few groups though, my list's still more comprehensive...).


DoomRulz

DoomRulz

#1169
On feathers; what's the current consensus on feathery/fuzzy sauropods and other giant herbivores?

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