Re: Some questions & feathered Allosaurs?

["Nick Gardner" <ratites637@hotmail.com>]

Ivan Kwan wrote:
> But recently I have been contemplating the presence of feathers in some of 
> the huge coelurosaurs like the tyrannosaurs & therizinosaurs. Maybe the 
> adults of the large species lost their "dino-fuzz" in maturity, but 
> retained certain features into adulthood. I recall a somewhat updated Greg 
> Paul picture in the Scientific American Dinosaurs book that depicted 
> _Tyrannosaurus bataar_ facing off with a small group of _Therizinosaurus 
> cheloniformis_ Old picture, but this time the tyrannosaurs had a fringe of 
> feathers along the lower edge of their arms.

To those of you all with the book, refer to page 33.

> Makes me speculate & dream up of all sorts of things; perhaps showing male 
> tyrannosaurs raising their arms to show a flash of colour during the mating 
> season? In any case, I've begun restoring my tyrannosaurs with a short & 
> fuzzy mane along the  back of their necks as well as a small caudal fan at 
> the tips of their tails. (too bad i don't have a scanner...)

This isn't really a new concept, it's been batted about on the list for at 
least three or four years, I think.  The first person I know of to 
consistently restore an adult tyrannosaurid with feathers was Will Svensen, 
but I wouldn't be surprised if there were earlier drawings by other artists. 
I know that there was an image in _National Geographic_ of a baby 
tyrannosaurid with feathers.  I've gone through very phases of feathering my 
tyrannosaurids, the first with extensive feather coverings, but more 
recently I've reduced the about to just on the back of the head, around the 
back of the lower jaw, on the very top of the body, on the arms, and on the 
tail.  I did go through a phase where I restored them with VERY LONG 
feathers on their tails sort of erupting upwardly.  Very freaky looking.

> And with the porcupine-tailed psittacosaur, suddenly feathered 
> ornithischians don't look so bizarre to me either. Maybe basal ornithopods 
> like _Hypsilophodon_ had some primitve fuzzy integument, a feature that 
> maybe newly hatched iguanodonts & hadrosaurs possessed. At the moment 
> though, the thought of giving my Triceratops a porcupine tail is still too 
> bizarre to contemplate. (Though you never know what you may find out...)

CMIIW, but the preserved integumentary structures of *Psittacosaurus* sp. 
were not feathers, not even in the sense of dino-fuzz.  I wouldn't be 
surprised if little ornithischians did have dino-fuzz which I do restore 
them with.

> And I just had a horrifying thought... feathered & fuzzy ankylosaurs, 
> stegosaurs & sauropods??????!!!

I don't think that sauropods would have had feathers.  Do the fossilized 
embryos show any integumentary preservation? I doubt that 
non-maniraptoriforms had feathers, but I wouldn't be surprised by dino-fuzz 
at all.  I imagine that ankylosaurs and stegosaurs lost their dino-fuzz 
earlier in their evolution, but this is all speculation in light of the lack 
of integumentary impressions aside from the armor.


Nick Gardner
Paleoartist
AIM Eoraptor22

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