no feathers on Pelicanimimus

[Pieter.Depuydt@rug.ac.be]

Perhaps this is old news for most of you, but I didn't read anything about it 
on the list so here it is:

from Science 30 May 1997, Random Samples:

'No Feathers on Spanish Dino'

'Last year, Chnese paleontologists stirred up an ongoing controversy 
when they suggested that the fossil of a birdlike dinosaur foud in 
China had a featherey mane (...). But since then, there has been no 
further evidence to support the theory that some dinos had feathers. 
Now a birdlike dino found in Spain offers some negative evidence:
A detailed mold of skin from its head suggests that this 
particular creature was featherless. (...)
The first birdlike dino to be found in Europe, the animal had a 
pelican-like throat poach and a soft tissue crest on its head. 
Microscopic examination of the skin showed that its surface was 
wrinkled and "bore no evidence of any structures such as feathers or 
enlarged scales", according to Derek Briggs of Bristol Universtiy, 
who, with Jose Luis Sanz of Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, has been 
studying the fossil.'

Further according to the Science report, the full research will be 
published in the July issue of the Journal of the Geological Society, 
London.

The generic name of the dinosaur is not mentioned in the Science 
report, but I guess it's the ornithomimosaur Pelicanimimus...

Pieter Depuydt