Re: Feathers for T-rex?

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Scott Hartmann (DinoBoyGraphics@aol.com) wrote:

<Seriously, the only evidential conclusion that can be reached on
tyrannosaurs right now is that they were proto-feathered throughout life. 
Speculation that they may have lost them either during phyletic evolution
or ontogenetic development is possible (with the total loss during
phyletic evolution much less likely in my opinion) but remains only
speculative until more direct data becomes available.>

  At least basally, the tyrannosauroids should be feathered to some degree
at stage 1 or II elements. However, there is reason to suspect this was
not sustained at large size, which is coincident in extant environments
temperature-biased. Ostriches are fully "fluffed-out" at hatching, but
during maturity, their legs become almost entirely bare from ankle to hip.
Integumnet in the adult or the juvenile does not hold true during the
moult. This might be of some issue in reflecting wether or not adult
tyrannosaurids were feathered or not. The idea that the arms bore full
stage IV-V remiges is unlikely given the phylogenetic bracketing.

  Cheers,

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com