RE: About dinosaurs and feathers.

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> Daniel Bensen
>The generally excepted
> theory is that
> the evolution of feathers (by "feathers" I mean bristly "dinofuzz", not
> flight feathers) occurred somewhere within Coelurosauria, including the
> compsognathids (defiantly), the tyrannosaurs and ornithomimes (maybe), the
> oviraptors and therizinosaurs (almost defiantly, although no
> fossils to prove
> one way or the other have been found to my knowledge), the deinonychosaurs
> (defiantly), and Avialae.

_Caudipteryx_ is coming out as an oviraptorosaur in almost all the recent
analyses I've seen, and _Beipiaosaurus_ is a therizinosauroid with
"dinofuzz", so I would say "definitely" for these two clades.

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796