dino news: mummified dinosaur tail found in amber. Has ACTUAL 3D FEATHERY FEATHERS - by Vivian
demagogue on 9/12/2016 at 07:57
Cool beans. :D
Vivian on 9/12/2016 at 12:09
Quote Posted by montag
Nice share, Vivian! Love these kinds of things, amazing how the Dinosaurs changed since I was a kid. When I was a wee lad, they all had to live in swamps so their massive bodies could be supported by water! (link to paper is broken?)
Yeah sorry man, typo. It's fixed now. Isn't living in the era of open-access scientific publishing rad?
Vivian on 9/12/2016 at 12:12
Quote Posted by faetal
FIs there any other way at all for things to be preserved this well?
(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphatic_fossilization) Phosphatic fossilization can also produce some pretty eye-popping results, but the thing generally still gets pancaked during the preservation (unless it's a microfossil, seemingly - I guess because a lot of tiny things are basically spherical?). Check out the Doushantuo embryo stuff, it's amazing.
faetal on 9/12/2016 at 21:58
This is one of those once in a lifetime finds. It's maddening to think about all of what we'll never be able to see from prehistory.
Tocky on 11/12/2016 at 05:01
Little raptor is scrabbling at the base of a tree when a large Spinosaur bites him into damaging the tree in the process. Sap runs from the gouge covering the missed bit of tail.
The feathers are branched like a tree. I didn't expect that. What is the current theory behind feather development? I seriously doubt it was just about sexual selection. I'm a big believer in form following function. There must have been some heat distribution factor or something. And yeah yeah sex is a function but that is still one hell of a development for just "damn girl you pretty in that feather boa".
demagogue on 11/12/2016 at 10:20
If it's a super expensive boa, the sex selection theory is it's a natural signal of your salary (health and strength) that you can't fake.
Vivian on 11/12/2016 at 17:42
The only real explanation for the initial development of feathers is insulation. Coelurosaurs at least were undoubtedly endothermic. All of the display functions were a further development.
Nicker on 11/12/2016 at 18:08
Have they accessed the actual remains yet? Any chance of recovering organic / genetic material?
Vivian on 11/12/2016 at 19:04
Quote Posted by Nicker
Have they accessed the actual remains yet? Any chance of recovering organic / genetic material?
I think all they've done so far is a micro-CT, which is what the imagery in the paper is based on. I would be surprised if there isn't a lot of organic material left to be honest, even in trad fossils there is often original material still in there, but it's usually collagen or something similarly robust. Genetic material is unlikely, though - DNA just isn't stable over the timescales involved, so even if chemically it's the same, the genetic information would be corrupted beyond use (I imagine).
Nicker on 11/12/2016 at 19:25
Cool. I understand they were able to sequence the collagen recovered from the TRex fossil and compare it to modern birds. I didn't figure there would be DNA but perhaps some other material which might support common ancestry.
Anyway, what a find. Feathers.
