Re: Deinonychus restoration

[longrich@alumni.princeton.edu]

On Thursday, July 4, 2002, at 04:01 PM, Jaime A. Headden wrote:

> Nick Pharris (njpharris@aol.com) wrote:
>
> <Looks good, but (and this is a general question) why do I keep seeing
> dromaeosaurids reconstructed with long feathers only at the end of the
> tail?  I'd imagine they would have flat feathers sticking out to the 
> sides
> for the whole length of the tail, as appears to be the case in
> _Archaeopteryx_, _Jurapteryx_ (if distinct from the former),
> _Microraptor_, and, IIRC, "Dave".>
>
>   Truly pinnate features along the entire sides of the tail are known 
> only
> in the *Arechaeopteryx* complex among these taxa. In some taxa, a distal
> "fan" is present, but otherwise, as in "Dave"/"Yulong" and
> *Sinosauropteryx*, the tail is adorned only by a "sheath" of filaments.
> Not pinnaecous ones. It is more parsimoniuous with the multitude of 
> forms
> with distal "fans" to propose that this is the condition more likely to
> occur in other non-avian taxa.

	I'm not sure about that one. Dave appears to me to have had very 
well-developed vaned feathers, they are just really short, narrow, and 
numerous; they seem shaggier than in Caudipteryx or Protarchaeopteryx; 
however they don't look like simple hair to me.