ICHNITES WITH FEATHERS

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

The African dinosaur tracks with 'feather impressions' referred to by 
someone on the list might be the _Masitisisauropus_ trackways 
described by Paul Ellenberger in the 1970s. I don't have the refs to 
hand: I think the tracks were Triassic, and from South Africa. For 
those that have seen photos of these tracks, they are strange and 
difficult to interpret - what appear to be pentadactyl handprints are 
surrounded by radiating lines that, if they are feathers, sure are 
arranged in a very peculiar pattern (and not what we expect given the 
way feathers grow off the hands in birds and _Caudipteryx_). The figs 
are reproduced in some of Don Glut's dinosaur encyclopedias.

Hardly anyone believes today that the _Masitisisauropus_ tracks do 
preserve feather impressions, or that they were made by protobird 
theropods. Ellenberger was (and is?) of the opinion that birds 
evolved in the Permo-Triassic from the same kind of 'avimorph 
thecodonts' favoured more recently by Feduccia et al. This is evident 
from Ellenberger's papers on _Cosesaurus_ (apparently a juvenile 
prolacertiform) - he regarded it as a protobird.

Having said all of this, it's still difficult to explain what the 
_Masitisisauropus_ tracks _do_ represent. I may have spelt the 
generic name wrong.. and if memory serves, there was a second genus 
from the same site - it's name is nearly the same but even longer.

"Goodnight little kids goodni-ight"

DARREN NAISH 
PALAEOBIOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP
School of Earth, Environmental & Physical Sciences
UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH
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