downy dinos

[Waylon Rowley <whte_rbt_obj@yahoo.com>]

     It just occured to me that the structure of the
"hair" on more basal coelurosaurs resembles the kind
of fur seen in polar bears. Polar bears have hollow
fur which acts like a fiber optic cable to channel the
sunlight to the dark epidermis while also maintaining
an insulatory surface to hold the heat in. This makes
me think that small theropods were doing something
similar with their fuzz. If you look at the
distribution of long feathers in maniraptorans, they
seem to be most evident on the tail and arms - the
parts of the body most prone to heat loss. Perhaps
feathers became more complex with barbs and barbules
to increase the light intake of these filaments. Arms
and retrices became longer to increase dorsal exposure
to the sun. Since my hypothetical theropod is small
and highly energetic, it needed to get access to
sunlight that most other reptiles couldn't reach, so
it became arboreal and sunned itself above the forest
canopy, pursuing insects among the branches. The rest
of the story is up to interpretation. Maybe it
dive-bombed fish and developed flight underwater (as
HP Marjanovic believes), glided from the trees, or
whatever. Interestingly, the structure feathers are
believed to have evolved from are used in crocodilians
for heat exchange (ever see a croc in an infrared
camera? Its scutes glow bright yellow.) and this has
been suggested for the plates of _Stegosaurus_.
So, if anyone can provide a little peer criticism of
this idea I would be delighted.

Cheers,

Waylon Rowley  

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