Pelecanimimus and Sinosauroteryx

[luisrey@ndirect.co.uk (luisrey)]

I agree with Nino that I only have seen poor photographs of the
Pelecanimimus fossil (I could seen from the photographs in Nature that it
was fibrous), but still nothing like the Sinosauropteryx photographs in
Audubon. And these are clear enough for me.

If you examine it with a magnifying glass (specially the close-up of the
head) you will see that there ARE small patches of skin that are yellow but
that have nothing to do with the hairy mane projected outwards that is
actually not yellow but dark brown.
You might argue about the mane on top of the head, neck, shoulders and rest
of the thorax, but what about the tail? The alternating, parallel clusters
projecting outwards in feathery fashion there are too clear to deny and far
from any 'muscular' trace.
I doubt I would see exactly the same pattern in Pelecanimimus. The crest or
mane in Sinosauropteryx still don't seem muscular or skin wrinkles to me!
The claim by other post that the 'feathers' were an accident of preparation
of the fossil can't be serious... Those are not chisel marks or any other
thing and it is obvious that this is not a "Piltdown" as Feduccia wanted
it.

And yes, I still defend that the ancestor of a feather or a proto-feather
was a reptilian display scale, insulation and flight specialization came
later. Evolution is made by accidents... Hairs also come from modified
scales.

Chemical analyses of the structures seeing in Sinosauropteryx is needed to
determine what sort of things are those hairy clusters.

Regard.   Luis Rey

Luis Rey

Visit my website http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~luisrey