Re: birds and dinosaurs

[Dora Smith <villandra@austin.rr.com>]

Thanks for pinning this down.   I tried to pin down two reports I saw
mentioned a couple of months ago, and didn't get very far.

Only problem; I don't understand the terminology in these posts.    What
does it mean that the skin was "pebbled" like an elephant's, and that it
wasn't bumpy like a "typical" dinosaur's?

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, Texas
villandra@austin.rr.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mickey Mortimer" <Mickey_Mortimer111@msn.com>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Sunday, July 04, 2004 4:06 PM
Subject: Re: birds and dinosaurs


> Amtoine Grant wrote-
>
> > > What about differences such as feathers?
> >
> > Do you have evidence tyrannosaurs didn't have feathers?
>
> Some evidence, yes.  There are three tyrannosaur skin impressions now
known
> (as far as I can tell), and though none are published, and are varyingly
> described as having hadrosaur-like reticulated scales or a scaleless bumpy
> surface, they do not preserve feathers.  These don't exclude the
possibility
> tyrannosaurs had small feathered areas on their body, but such would
surely
> not confer the same survival advantage as a bird's full covering in any
> case.
>
> http://www.cmnh.org/dinoarch/1995Mar/msg00410.html
> http://www.cmnh.org/dinoarch/1996Feb/msg00497.html
> http://www.cmnh.org/dinoarch/2001May/msg00383.html
>
> Mickey Mortimer
> Undergraduate, Earth and Space Sciences
> University of Washington
> The Theropod Database - http://students.washington.edu/eoraptor/Home.html