Re: integument (Re: Dinosaur Were Endotherms (sic))

[tlford@ix.netcom.com]

On 04/02/98 12:19:56 you wrote:
>
>
>Actually, we don't have integument of any sort preserved on most small
>fossil reptiles, period!  No scales, no feathers, not even wrinkled skin.
>Only certain environments and taphonomic conditions can preserve the
>external features.
>
Last year I was walking around the SVP and I over heard someone say they had 
skin impressions 
from a Dimetrodon. I don't know any more that that. At least its one early 
animal.

There are skin impressions of early animotes, ie. Labyrinthodon's, and they 
have scales.
So artist need to take this into account when they do drawings. For example, 
Metoposaurids have 
scales, and didn't have skin like modern amphibians. They did not look like a 
Helibender (sic).

>This is not that unusual, but the dino-fan community seem to forget this
>once in awhile.  However, when was the last time you saw the preserved
>integument of an early horse?  Of a brontothere?  Of almost any fossil bird
>(other than those of Solnhofen, Las Hoyas, or Liaoning)?  For these, as in
>most dinosaur taxa, all we have are bones.  The lack of preserved integument
>is not unusual: it is the default condition.

To true.

Tracy
>