Re: Bloody feathers & flicky tails (was: Feathers as fossilized behaviour)

[Betty Cunningham <bettyc@flying-goat.com>]

A deinonychus rolling on it's back and breaking (theoretical) display
feathers is not as dangerously fatal to the deinonychus than when a bird
of prey breaks any feather that affects it's flight dynamics.  Just
something to think about.

John V Jackson wrote:
> Recently I've been pondering the treatment body feathers would get on such
> as Deinonychus which attacked larger prey.  Lions do a lot of rolling
> around when they're attacking zebra's etc., and both Bakker on p 310 of
> "..Heresies" and Knight in his "Laelaps" picture show "Rolling on the back"
> behaviour - frozen of course in the fighting pair.  The bigger the
> animal, the higher the pressure on any back or side feathers, and I
> personally don't see neat structured feathers lasting long on Deinonychus
> etc (though birds of prey sometimes roll around on the ground during an
> attack).
>     ---#---
> While perusing the fighting pair I noticed that *the stiff bit* of the _V_'s
> tail bent through 60 degrees.  

This is cool

-Betty Cunningham

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