RE: SAUROPOD FEATHERS

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

Julien wrote:
> Anyway, I'd be interested to know more about this hypothesis of yours, if 
> you don't mind repeating it, that is...
******************************************
    That's where the list archives comes in handy.  :-)   In June 2001, I 
first proposed my hypothesis that protofeathers may have started out on the 
end of the tail as a predator evasion strategy (sort of like lizards that 
have colorful wiggly detachable tail-tips.   The news of the bristly-tailed 
psittacosaur in August provided some actual evidence that this might be 
true.  Anyway, here are three links to messages I posted on this subject in 
June, August and October:

http://www.cmnh.org/fun/dinosaur-archive/2001Jun/msg00755.html

http://www.cmnh.org/fun/dinosaur-archive/2001Aug/msg00459.html

http://www.cmnh.org/fun/dinosaur-archive/2001Oct/msg00226.html

           ------ Cheers,  Ken
P.S.  Oh, in answer to David's question, the key word was *need*.  In 
primitive dinosaurs, posterior protofeathers may have been all that they 
needed for brooding, and the expansion of such protofeathers anteriorly to 
the arms may have then allowed brooding of more eggs.  Not "needed" but 
certainly advantageous---like "icing on the cake"---and of course later 
aerodynamic exaptation would have been even more advantageous icing on the 
cake (and when mass extinctions strike, the more such survival advantages 
you have the better).

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