Dinosaur tail found in Amber

SLAM: debunk creationism, pseudoscience, and superstitions. Discuss logic and morality.

Moderator: Alyrium Denryle

Post Reply
User avatar
Sea Skimmer
Yankee Capitalist Air Pirate
Posts: 37389
Joined: 2002-07-03 11:49pm
Location: Passchendaele City, HAB

Dinosaur tail found in Amber

Post by Sea Skimmer »

Jurassic Park points increase 10,000%!

See mor images at link
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/12/ ... -feathers/
Image[/quote]
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
User avatar
Napoleon the Clown
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 2446
Joined: 2007-05-05 02:54pm
Location: Minneso'a

Re: Dinosaur tail found in Amber

Post by Napoleon the Clown »

My dad was texting me last night about this, joking that millenials had made dinosaurs sissies. My response was that we had made birds more badass.


It's pretty neat to have another example of a feathered dinosaur. I'm curious as to just what portion of them had feathers vs not.
Sig images are for people who aren't fucking lazy.
User avatar
Guardsman Bass
Cowardly Codfish
Posts: 9281
Joined: 2002-07-07 12:01am
Location: Beneath the Deepest Sea

Re: Dinosaur tail found in Amber

Post by Guardsman Bass »

Napoleon the Clown wrote:My dad was texting me last night about this, joking that millenials had made dinosaurs sissies. My response was that we had made birds more badass.


It's pretty neat to have another example of a feathered dinosaur. I'm curious as to just what portion of them had feathers vs not.
Most of the Therapod dinosaurs would have been feathered as juveniles, with some keeping their feathers into adulthood. Those were nearly all of the bipedal predator dinosaurs, from Tyrannosaurs to Allosaurs to Velociraptors.

It's not so certain with the rest of them (including the majority of herbivores). I think they've found a few quadruped herbivore dinosaurs with evidence for feathers (or something like feathers), but overall the evidence isn't strong.
“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.”
-Jean-Luc Picard


"Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them."
-Margaret Atwood
User avatar
LadyTevar
White Mage
White Mage
Posts: 23145
Joined: 2003-02-12 10:59pm

Re: Dinosaur tail found in Amber

Post by LadyTevar »

My Google-Fu is failing me, but wasn't there a similar article a few months back where they found the preserved skeleton of a baby therapod in amber?
IIRC, it was also found in a market that sold amber jewelry. Could this be a missing portion of that same baby?
Image
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
User avatar
Solauren
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 10172
Joined: 2003-05-11 09:41pm

Re: Dinosaur tail found in Amber

Post by Solauren »

Guardsman Bass wrote:
Napoleon the Clown wrote:My dad was texting me last night about this, joking that millenials had made dinosaurs sissies. My response was that we had made birds more badass.


It's pretty neat to have another example of a feathered dinosaur. I'm curious as to just what portion of them had feathers vs not.
Most of the Therapod dinosaurs would have been feathered as juveniles, with some keeping their feathers into adulthood. Those were nearly all of the bipedal predator dinosaurs, from Tyrannosaurs to Allosaurs to Velociraptors.

It's not so certain with the rest of them (including the majority of herbivores). I think they've found a few quadruped herbivore dinosaurs with evidence for feathers (or something like feathers), but overall the evidence isn't strong.
I hadn't heard that. It makes some sense for the hatchlings to have down, maybe even even thin 'proto-feathers' for a while, but after that, I have trouble visualizing WHY a Stegosaurus, Triceratops, or Ankylosaurus would need feathers.

Mind you, the mental image of something the size of a large Sauropod (i.e Titanosaurus) having a full coat of feathers is just to damn funny...
I've been asked why I still follow a few of the people I know on Facebook with 'interesting political habits and view points'.

It's so when they comment on or approve of something, I know what pages to block/what not to vote for.
User avatar
Sea Skimmer
Yankee Capitalist Air Pirate
Posts: 37389
Joined: 2002-07-03 11:49pm
Location: Passchendaele City, HAB

Re: Dinosaur tail found in Amber

Post by Sea Skimmer »

Why? Insulation probably. If they really were both hot and cold blooded they may well have needed feathers to protect exposed areas like tails necks and and ankles from variations in exterior temperature beyond the ability of their partial warm blooded heat production to match. The world was a fair bit warmer then sure, but that doesn't mean dinos wouldn't need this, walking over a high hill in bad weather for example a human can freeze to death with 50F ambient temperature. Obviously the bigger they'd get the less it would matter, which is why it's doubtful a sauropod would be feathered extensively.

Some people think the feathers were some sexual selection thing, but I don't buy that because the feathers would have had to start very very small in evolutionary terms. So small other animals would literally have trouble seeing them, while the metabolic cost of growing them is high. Any selection role would surely come later as the plumage became more significant.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
User avatar
jwl
Jedi Master
Posts: 1137
Joined: 2013-01-02 04:31pm

Re: Dinosaur tail found in Amber

Post by jwl »

No-one has mentioned Jurassic Park yet?
User avatar
Shroom Man 777
FUCKING DICK-STABBER!
Posts: 21222
Joined: 2003-05-11 08:39am
Location: Bleeding breasts and stabbing dicks since 2003
Contact:

Re: Dinosaur tail found in Amber

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Even larger mammalianoids like buffalo and giraffes have fur so equivalently-sized dinosaurians might have fur-like feathers? Of course when they reach elephant-like mass, or rhino-like mass, such things might not be as much of a concern? Depending on where... furry elephants did exist...
Image "DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source)
shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN!
Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people :D - PeZook
Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic
Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
User avatar
Thanas
Magister
Magister
Posts: 30779
Joined: 2004-06-26 07:49pm

Re: Dinosaur tail found in Amber

Post by Thanas »

jwl wrote:No-one has mentioned Jurassic Park yet?
Nobody except the OP in his first line lol.
Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------
A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
------------
My LPs
User avatar
Flagg
CUNTS FOR EYES!
Posts: 12797
Joined: 2005-06-09 09:56pm
Location: Hell. In The Room Right Next to Reagan. He's Fucking Bonzo. No, wait... Bonzo's fucking HIM.

Re: Dinosaur tail found in Amber

Post by Flagg »

Thanas wrote:
jwl wrote:No-one has mentioned Jurassic Park yet?
Nobody except the OP in his first line lol.
QUICK! TO THE CRICHTON-MOBILE!

...It's... It's a hearse... 8)
We pissing our pants yet?
-Negan

You got your shittin' pants on? Because you’re about to
Shit. Your. Pants!
-Negan

He who can,
does; he who cannot, teaches.
-George Bernard Shaw
User avatar
The Romulan Republic
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 21559
Joined: 2008-10-15 01:37am

Re: Dinosaur tail found in Amber

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Even larger mammalianoids like buffalo and giraffes have fur so equivalently-sized dinosaurians might have fur-like feathers? Of course when they reach elephant-like mass, or rhino-like mass, such things might not be as much of a concern? Depending on where... furry elephants did exist...
So if I'm understanding this all correctly, its theorized that the progression in how feathers were used was first as insulation, then for display, and only later for flight?
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
User avatar
Shroom Man 777
FUCKING DICK-STABBER!
Posts: 21222
Joined: 2003-05-11 08:39am
Location: Bleeding breasts and stabbing dicks since 2003
Contact:

Re: Dinosaur tail found in Amber

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

I'm no biomagus but sure? I mean those initial mutations or adaptations could not have been automatically be so developed as to be... formed in a way that would help for flight. The initial manifestations of feathery crap would have to be pretty half-assed... something just useful for things like insulation. Like how the first legs were probably just to help sea creatures undulate better... it's not like they automatically grew cheetah legs. Gliding-flight would require more developed sorts of feathers and is a complex activity. Whereas some stubble to help El Reptilio keep warm seems simpler.
Image "DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source)
shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN!
Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people :D - PeZook
Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic
Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
User avatar
SpottedKitty
Jedi Master
Posts: 1004
Joined: 2014-08-22 08:24pm
Location: UK

Re: Dinosaur tail found in Amber

Post by SpottedKitty »

The Romulan Republic wrote:So if I'm understanding this all correctly, its theorized that the progression in how feathers were used was first as insulation, then for display, and only later for flight?
That's pretty much how evolution works; existing bits of anatomy are repurposed again and again and again. If this goes on long enough, it might not be easy to recognise what the original anatomy did, or even what it looked like.
“Despite rumor, Death isn't cruel — merely terribly, terribly good at his job.”
Terry Pratchett, Sourcery
User avatar
Alyrium Denryle
Minister of Sin
Posts: 22224
Joined: 2002-07-11 08:34pm
Location: The Deep Desert
Contact:

Re: Dinosaur tail found in Amber

Post by Alyrium Denryle »

Sea Skimmer wrote:Some people think the feathers were some sexual selection thing, but I don't buy that because the feathers would have had to start very very small in evolutionary terms. So small other animals would literally have trouble seeing them, while the metabolic cost of growing them is high. Any selection role would surely come later as the plumage became more significant.
Feathers are basically modified scales on their own they are not that expensive to produce, particularly if they are small, and the whole point of a structure under sexual selection is that it is costly to produce. "Gaze upon my feathers, I managed to grow these despite horrible living conditions which means I am a genetic badass. Fuck me!" is basically what they are saying.

For most birds, the pigments (or reflective surfaces for the irridecent colors) are actually the part that is costly to produce. Once the feather evolves initially (for insulation), well... now there is a structure upon which sexual selection can act. Start off with down infused with red and black pigments (or something like that), then in some lineages (therapods) you start getting display structures on the forearms and tail made of symmetrical feathers with gaudy pigments or iridescent physical structures. At which point, some arboreal lineages might be using them for stabilization on branches or for parachuting and asymmetrical flight feathers evolve. At which point you get gliders. When they end up on the ground, the same motion used for flight can also be used to assist in climbing (wing assisted incline running).

But that never would have been possible without sexual selection for larger display structures.
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/
Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences


There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.

Factio republicanum delenda est
Post Reply