Dinosaurs now have feathers

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Gastropods don't have feathers either.

Google, Google, Google. Oh.

 

[Trebuchet]

Google, Google, Google. Oh.

Now try "cephalopods". You might end up with PZ Myers.

 

[Loss Leader]

There are lots of skin impressions of sauropods, none have anything resembling feathers.

Are there? I thought that they were very rare.

 

[Rincewind]

Ha! Here's "good evidence" that no dinosaur flew but that a blue whale did.

No sign of a bowl of petunias anywhere in that picture, however.

LOL!

Good catch!

 

[Rincewind]

I have some reptiles for cousins. And I correct something I said elsewhere: One of them is now confirmed as a snake handler.

And also as a potential (likely?) Darwin Award candidate?

 

[McHrozni]

There's no evidence of feathered sauropods for example.

Dear lord, that would look Ridiculous.

Sauropods didn't need (or want) feathers anyway. The size alone is all they'd need for any level of thermal control they would fancy.

McHrozni

 

[Damien Evans]

There's only one type of dinosaurs alive. They all have feathers. I think the idea would be to prove that some dinosaurs didn't have feathers. Otherwise the default would be "dinosaurs had feathers."

(And I actually doubt that myself somewhat, because I don't think the earthshakers needed feathers to keep warm. The young ones, maybe, but seismosaurus, not so much.)

Elephants don't need hair for warmth, but they still have it.

 

[Damien Evans]

And they came from a branch that split from the dinosaur family tree 165 million years before they went extinct. And feathers evolved after that branch. There is no reason to expect sauropods to have feathers.


There are lots of skin impressions of sauropods, none have anything resembling feathers.

Evidence?

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

And also as a potential (likely?) Darwin Award candidate?

They start reproducing at or before 15, so it's hard to get a good DA out of them. But they're still candidates for cameos on "Cops" and "World's Dumbest Rednecks Fascist Prepper Ass-holes"™.

 

[Damien Evans]

Here is a review article that provides what is basically the current research on which dinosaurs had and did not have feathers.

http://observationdeck.kinja.com/a-comprehensive-guide-to-dinosaur-feathers-and-scales-1603368757
‘A Comprehensive Guide to Dinosaur Feathers and Scales’


So it appears hadrosaurs and sauropods had no feathers.
Most small theropods had feathers.
Tyrannosaurs: maybe?

And there are no extant birds without feathers. Unless you count the crocodile as birds!

The other thing to point out is that only a very few fossil beds have sufficient quality of preservation to show feathers at all. These same fossil beds are notably lacking in Sauropod and Hadrosaur fossils, so it may just be that no fossils of sufficient quality to definitively show feathers from those dinosaurs have been found yet.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Elephants don't need hair for warmth, but they still have it.

Would you consider elephants to have a coat that keeps them warm? Or is it just an atavism?

 

[Damien Evans]

Would you consider elephants to have a coat that keeps them warm? Or is it just an atavism?

Well, it's far to sparse a covering to be useful for warmth.

 

[Mader Levap]

Obligatory.

 

[phunk]

Evidence?

The fossil record for feathers starts like 30 million years after that fork, and they don't exist in the other branches. It's not proof, but it's certainly evidence.

The closest thing to feathers seen in any non-theropod is some quill-like filaments in a few ornithisians that appear to have been a separate evolution.

 

[Ziggurat]

Obligatory.

Don't forget this one.

 

[Sherman Bay]

Now try "cephalopods". You might end up with PZ Myers.

AFAIK, PZ Meyers doesn't have feathers.

 

[Damien Evans]

The fossil record for feathers starts like 30 million years after that fork, and they don't exist in the other branches. It's not proof, but it's certainly evidence.

The closest thing to feathers seen in any non-theropod is some quill-like filaments in a few ornithisians that appear to have been a separate evolution.

That's a couple of nice assertions, but not evidence (lack of Konservat-Lagerstätten in the Triassic means we almost certainly couldn't know if basal dinosaurs had protofeathers or not). Especially not the second paragraph.

 

[Trebuchet]

Obligatory.

Stuff that bugs the heck out of me: Most of the American public now thinks "raptor" refers only to dinosaurs.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

AFAIK, PZ Meyers doesn't have feathers.

The word "cephalopods" was nontrivial.

 

[Darwin123]

Dear lord, that would look Ridiculous.

Sauropods didn't need (or want) feathers anyway. The size alone is all they'd need for any level of thermal control they would fancy.

McHrozni

Protofeathers could have had uses other than thermal insulation or aerodynamic lift.

They could have been used as quills, for instance. A brontosaur had many enemies. A sauropod could have had what we would call the shafts of feathers with sharpened points to protect them from theropods.

Feathers are also used for display or camouflage. A male sauropod could have had a colorful frill of feathers to attract mates. Or feathers that looked like a rough texture of bark.

There is no evidence for feathers in sauropods. However, there may be reasons for not finding them other than they are not there. The sampling error is one. There weren't many sauropods in those regions where feathers are most likely to be preserved.

There also were small sauropods. Juvenile sauropods may have needed feathers for thermal insulation. Maybe the ones in the arctic circle needed a some down right after they hatched from eggs. Not all sauropods were behemoths even as adults.

I won't insist that sauropods had them. However, evidence is currently lacking.