Re: New feather-like fossil from the Jurassic of Kazakhstan, Dzik et al 2010

[Tim Williams <tijawi@gmail.com>]

David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at> wrote:


> Yes. The assumption that feathers in general are "for flight" is a fairly
> integral part of BAND (see Feduccia's books) and was rather widespread even
> outside it till *Sinosauropteryx* was discovered.


Feduccia explicitly rejects the idea that feathers (or their ancestral
homologs) originally evolved for insulation.  In his words:


"To clothe a ground-dwelling, warm-blooded reptile with feathers for
insulation is tantamount to insulating an ice truck with heat shields
from the space shuttle."


(Thus, Feduccia is equating a dinosaurian origin of birds with a
'ground-up' origin of flight.  Tsk tsk.)


Instead, Feduccia proposed that feathers evolved for feather-assisted
jumping from limb to limb by tree-dwelling protobirds (which were not
dinosaurs, but some form of arboreal 'thecodont').



Cheers

Tim