Re: Origin of feathers

[Dinogeorge <Dinogeorge@aol.com>]

In a message dated 98-04-22 09:32:48 EDT, spockjr@email.msn.com writes:

<< An interesting idea proposed last weekend at Dinofest by
 Mark Orsen is that feathers may have evolved for the purpose
 of brooding early on in the history of theropods.  >>

There's simply no way to confirm this. Feathers could equally well have
evolved for other reasons and were later exapted for this function. The more
functions feathers acquire, the better the chance that feathers will persist
in evolutionary lineages.