RE: Sinosauropteryx feathers?

["Daniel Bensen" <dbensen@bowdoin.edu>]

Well if you want opinions:

It's my opinion that Sinosauropteryx had dino-fuzz (down) only and no
contour feathers.  It seems to me that contour feathers' function is
aerodynamic (which is why flightless birds loose them so quickly) and as
Sinosauropteryx was obviously flightless (well, as obviously as anything
in the fossil record is), I wouldn't expect it to have contour feathers
at all.  Contour feathers, like most complex structures, are selected
against pretty strongly if they aren't absolutely necessary. 
 Go with down, or dinofuzz, unless your critter is defiantly volant (or,
I suppose, is using contour feathers for display, like Caudipteryx), and
even then, I've heard some talk about the lack of contour feathers on
things like Confuciusornis.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Dan