Re: Dino feathers

[gpb6845@msu.oscs.montana.edu]

Paul Davis wrote:

> The specimen does indeed appear to be a compsognathid and it seems to have
> an exceptionally long tail (about 3/5 of total body length).  The specimen
> is preserved in exactly the same attitude as the Solnhofen Compsognathus. 
> The forelimbs appear to be slightly disarticulated (again not clear from
> the photograph).

Any ideas as to why all known Compsignathid specimens died in the exact same 
pose?  That strikes me as very odd.  Also, how many fingers do you see?  
Aside from the feathers, I think that the proper finger count will be the 
most important piece of evidence taken from Sinosauropteryx (how much do I 
hate that name?......).

> My gut feeling (from looking at this photo) is that the specimen is not
> feathered and upon closer investigation they will turn out to be nothing
> more than unusual scales - after all this type of scale structure is common
> in at least 3 living lizards - so why shouldn't a useful functional object
> such as this be apparent in dinos?

Am I correct in my thinking that absolutely NO non-lepidosaurs have 
overlapping scales?  This is what you're advocating isn't it?  From the 
verbal discriptions I've heard so far, it seems far more likely that the 
structures are indeed feathers, and not overlapping Lepidosaur-style scales.  
Also, all known dinosaurian scales are non-overlapping (there is a proper 
word for this right?), like Edmontosaurus, Carnotaurus et cetera.

> [To all those who sent me "I told you so messages" I will be sending "Ha, I
> was right all along" back to you]

Not so fast.

Peter Buchholz
gpb6845@msu.oscs.montana.edu

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