Some short dino-related papers not yet mentioned:
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Roger B.J.Benson & Paul M.Barrett (2020)
Plant-eating dinosaurs evolved varied feeding strategies. A new study demonstrates convergent evolution of their skulls and teeth towards two distinct functional optima, one resembling advanced mammalian herbivory and the other echoing herbivory in birds and other reptiles.
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Free pdf:
Evan T. Saitta and Jakob Vinther (2019)
A perspective on the evidence for keratin protein preservation in fossils: An issue of replication versus validation.
Palaeontologia Electronica 22.3.2E: 1â30
doi:
https://doi.org/10.26879/1017Ehttps://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2019/2890-commentary-keratin-protein-preservationThe preservation potential of biomolecules within vertebrate integument through deep time has recently been subject to much research and controversy. In particular, the preservation potential of proteins, such as collagen and keratin, is currently debated. Here, we examine claims from a recent study (Schweitzer et al., 2018, PLoS One), which concludes that feather keratin has a high preservation potential. We argue that this work provides insufficient evidence for protein preservation due to issues of methodology and data interpretation. Additionally, we contrast their approach and claims to those of other recently published studies in relation to the question of keratin protein preservation in fossils. We worry that most of the perceived evidence for Mesozoic polypeptide survival stems from repeated replication of methods prone to false detection, rather than triangulation by validating these claims with alternative methods that provide independent lines of evidence. When alternative explanations exist for the evidence cited as support for dinosaur proteins far exceeding their predicted preservation limits, it is most parsimonious to reject the more extreme taphonomic hypotheses. The evidence is instead more consistent with a mode of preservation in which keratinous structures do not fossilize organically as polypeptides, but rather as largely pigment and/or calcium phosphate remnants, which were originally held within the keratin matrix that is now lost. Unsupported taphonomic models (e.g., keratin polypeptide preservation) have the potential to influence our interpretation of fossil data, potentially resulting in erroneous paleobiological or evolutionary conclusions, as illustrated in another recent paper (Pan et al., 2019, PNAS) that we also discuss.