RE: Microraptor Had Iridescent Plumage

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> I agree that there is no positive evidence of naked skin or scales
> preserved on the snout.
>
> Do you agree with me that there is also no positive evidence of feathers
> on the tip of the snout?

Sure.

> In NGMC 91 (Dave) we see an orderly decrease in the size of the
> feathers - growing shorter rostrally. No more feathers are preserved by
> the time we reach the proximal border of the nostril.

You're at the AMNH -- have you seen the specimen? I haven't; what I've seen is 
an annoying tendency to prepare the matrix away from around the snout tips of 
everything. Any feathers would be lost that way. In *Eoenantiornis*, feathers 
reach almost all the way to the tip, and the tip itself is prepared out.

> There are also none on birds.

Doesn't count, because you can't have a beak and feathers in the same place. 
I'm not aware of evidence for a beak in any deinonychosaur, including 
*Archaeopteryx* which preserves claw sheaths.

> Therefore don't you agree that the hypothesis that is most consistent
> with the evidence is that of a bare distal rostrum?

No.