RE: First Feathered dino pics?

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> Danvarner@aol.com
>
> qilongia@yahoo.com (Jaime A. Headden) writes:
>
> << Greg Paul (GSP1954@aol.com) [along with Dan Varner (danvarner@aol.com)]
> wrote:
>
> <April 1975 in Bakker's Dino Renn article in Sci Amer, the feathery
> Syntarsus  by Sarah Landry (reproduced in the Sci Amer Book of the Dino).
> Have found no  evidence of anyone earlier presenting such an outrageous
> concept  (tachymetabolic feathered dinosaurs as ancestors of birds, now
> really).>
>
>   Heilmann's *Compsognathus* being excepted? The integument illustrated
> was nearly identical in body plumage to his *Archaeopteryx* and the work
> was to infer *Compsognathus* from Solnhofen was feathered. >>
>
>        Heilmann's restoration of Compsognathus in _The Origin of
> Birds_(fig.
> 119) is unfeathered. Are you referring to another Heilman restoration? DV

I've skimmed through my (well, the library's...) copy of Heilmann, and can't
find any statement by him of feathers on coelurosaurs. However, found one
heck of an interesting footnote:
p. 203, footnote 8* concerns the work of J.E.V. Boas. He discusses Boas'
hypothesis that birds were derived from Ornithischia, and points out that
his evidence comes from Ornithomimus, Anchisaurus, and Diplodocus! He ends
by saying "At present Professor Boas ranks first among Danish
Paleozoologists."

As with others, I can't find an earlier illustration of a feathered
non-avialian theropod than the Syntarsus in "Dinosaur Renaissance", but I do
recall a book by Lucas from the first decade or so of the 20th Century that
mentions (in text) that Ornitholestes has such an Archaeopteryx-like
skeleton that it is not out of the question that it might have been
feathered.

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796