Velociraptors evidencing 'Quill Nobs'

[pdpbison]

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten.../317/5845/1721


Phil
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[TAWhatley]

Interesting article, Phil. Thanks for posting it!

Terry

[Margarret]

Fascinating article. Thanks Phil for posting it.

Margaret

[maryjane]

That is very interesting, Phil. . .I also thank you for posting it!

[TerriB]

That is so cool! Really amazing that something so delicate as a feather filament could be preserved from so long ago!

[pdpbison]

Part of what is so curious about these recent 'finds' ( finally vindicating Huxley's 1840's observation that modern Birds WERE the extant Theropods) , is that asymetrical ( or 'Flight' ) Feathers on the fore-Arms of however many ( all? ) Coleurosuars/Theropods, suggest a flying Ancestor for them to have decended FROM...or suggest a presience respecting their Specie's intentions for flight.

And along with a great deal of other co-relations and continuitys, continues to affirm that the Theropods were defacto flightless 'Birds', or, that Birds are defacto flight-able Theropods...

The implication, appearently then, that Theropods were decended from flight-able predecessors ( and probably having as yet undiscovered flight able comtemporarys ) has been some of the puzzle and vexation confronting the Paleontologists or Theologians and their appreciations of reason, logic, taxons/clades, and implication.


Either genetic expressions anticipate a Species' intentions by progressive increment or manifesting advances ( which is my acceptance ) or, Birds were the Ancestors of the then Bird-forms known as Theropod 'Dinasaurs' who are themselves the ancestors of modern Birds...


I have not seen this stated so bluntly, but that is approximately the conundrum as I understand it to be.


So again, as I so enjoy to muse on -

If one wishes to know 'what' the Theropods/Ceolurosaurs had been really like...observe Birds...for the Theropods are still here, and had never left...they just got 'smaller'...and in the all in all, I doubt their Natural Historys and persolitys and intelligence and ways of things have changed hardly at all for it.

Where for some several hundred Million Years, this had figuratively been 'their' Earth, in so far as that they reined Supreme among all Creatures, so to speak...

And in a lot of ways...they still do..!


They talked me into being their Servant, after all...and I glady agreed! I was a push-over for Pete's sake...


So, the hierarchy appearantly remains pretty well intact...



Lol...



Love,

Phil
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[pdpbison]

Originally Posted by TerriB

That is so cool! Really amazing that something so delicate as a feather filament could be preserved from so long ago!

Hi TerriB,



Sometimes Bones and soft itssues, internal organs and so on are preserved in dessicaiton or in adiposere ( when the recently deceased end up in cool Waters or anaerobic or bacteria free alluvial silts or muds...where their fat and fat saturated tissues turn to a sort of Wax or 'Soap' like ) states, where no 'fossilization' ( molecular saturaiton of organic structures with Mineral deposits ) occurs.

This is rare of course, let alone when from say a hundred or two hundred million years ago, for anyone to find now, but it happens.


So, whether in dessication, or, in adaposere conditions, internal organs and soft tissues, similarly, can end up being preserved for long periods, especially if the individual was fairly well fed and had normal or better than normal fat distributions, and, perished to end up in cool Waters or silts under Water...or had dessicated in some very windy cold or arid clime and somehow got covered in bacteria free depths of one kind or another.


This being so, finds of some remains of T-Rex and others, are known, with actual adaposere preserved soft tissues and bones.

These are then the actual Bones and Tissues and not 'fossils'.


From this it was ( and this is old news by now, but ) found ( or affirmed ) that they had Four Valve Hearts, just as we do, but which 'Reptiles' do not have...among other things.


And, recently, some DNA tests were done on actual preserved, dessicated soft Tissues and Bone Marrows of a T-Rex, and, if memory serve, the summary pronouncements were that they were nearly indistinguishable from those of a modern Ostrich, DNA wise...


Geneticists have discovered many of the Avian Genes which decide issues of 'Scales-or-Feathers', Web Feet or seperate Toes, Teeth or no Teeth, agile dextrous fingers or vestigual fingers, and so on.

Bear in mind also, that a Beak is a bone Mandible, having a Kerotinaceous 'sheath'...and with only a very minute election of Genetic menu, any modern Bird could resume a posession of actual 'fingers' at their Wing end 'hand' for grasping and climbing and so on, even while retaining a flight able Wing, or, rows of tiny pointed Teeth in their Beaks, and any other possible trait of which they are geneticaly capable...and which their ancestors had exhibited.


Probably, geneticists have already found ways of seeing to it that some of these Genes are actuated, and I remember reading some hints here and there in fact, about this...



Anyway...


So interesting..!


Phil
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[Pigeonpal2002]

Hi Phil,

I've personally always believed that birds are modern day descendants of dinosaurs. That article you provided was very interesting and just earlier today, I watched a show on the discovery channel that has also linked feathers to the T-Rex.

Apparently, they've found evidence that shows that the T-Rex young were born with feathers and lived with those feathers for several years until their mid teens. They dug up an excavation site recently in Alberta Canada that discovered that not only did the young T-Rex have feathers, but that the species lived and worked in a "pack". The young were quite different from the adults;being must smaller, slender and swift of foot. This enabled them to do the hunting and actual "running" down of their prey. The adults, being nearly 20 feet tall and weighing several tons they've surmised were just too big and cumbersome to hunt in such a manner. So, they worked as a team and as a group to bring down large game according to the program. The young would chase the prey and herd them into am ambush trap where the adults were waiting to make the kill.

All in all, it was very fascinating and it just goes to show that over the millennium, dinosaurs have survived and we (or most) of us are looking after them today. Wouldn't it be amazing to jump back in time to see all this stuff first hand?

[pdpbison]

Hi Brad,


Wow...

I sometimes have dreamed at night of raising logistically Orphanned 'Baby' Maniraptorids of some sort...'peepers' about the size of adult Pigeons only having 'teeth' in their Beaks, slender, wacky, vigorous...and deterous fingers on their Wings... great climbers...pin-Feathered Tails of Vertebrae but that would Feather out into a rather long Feathered Tail...

They were delightful..!


Lol...


And boy could they eat, too...but then, what else is new?


Dunno how big they would get...the dreams did not take it that far for me to know...


I bet if I could go back to those times, I would manage alright taking care of and raising orphanned Baby ones of various kinds...


But the Grown-Ups might give me some problems...


But it sure would be something wouldn't it? If one could go 'back' just to see what they really did look like? acted like? and all of it...?


Wow...


I would go, in a Heartbat...just to see...

...and I'd bring my running Shoes...and a few pressurized cans of those small portable 'Blow Horns' one can carry in a pocket...too...


Lol...




Phil
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