Re: Allosaur skin

[Dino Guy Ralph <ralph.miller@alumni.usc.edu>]

I wrote:
> > Quoting the abstract:
> > "The left side of the body preserves a 30 cm squared skin impression
> > consisting of small scales 2-3 mm in diameter.  This suggests that
> juvenile
> > allosaurs possessed scaly integument.  This represents the most derived
> > tetanuran to retain this character, otherwise present in more basal
> > theropods such as _Carnotaurus_."
"fam jansma" <fam.jansma@tiscali.nl> responded:
> Strange to find that a relatively basal one like Sinosauropteryx does have
> feathers, perhaps it is size related after all and we all should start
> drawing our tyrannosaurs scaly.

See http://www.dinosaur.net.cn/dino00174.jpg and 
http://www.dinosaur.net.cn/dino00146.jpg and 
http://www.dinosaur.net.cn/dino00149.jpg.  _Sinosauropteryx_, being a basal 
coelurosaur, is more closely related to birds than _Allosaurus_ is, because 
_Allosaurus_ is a neotetanuran but not a coelurosaur.  It may be that 
feathers are a synapomorphy of the clade Coelurosauria, in which case only 
coelurosaurs would possess this feature.

--------
"Dino Guy" Ralph W. Miller III
Docent at the California Academy of Sciences
proud member of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology