Feathered Dinosaur Older than Archaeopteryx Found

[Fire Fly]

Link

Dinosaurs had 'earliest feathers'
By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News

Exceptionally well preserved dinosaur fossils uncovered in north-eastern China display the earliest known feathers.

The creatures are all more than 150 million years old.

The new finds are indisputably older than Archaeopteryx, the "oldest bird" recognised by science.

Professor Xu Xing and colleagues tell the journal Nature that this represents the final proof that dinosaurs were ancestral to birds.

The theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs has always been troubled by the absence of feathers more ancient than those on the famous Archaeopteryx.

This has given critics room to question the idea.

But the new fossils, which come from two separate locations, are in most cases about 10 million years older than the primitive Archaeopteryx discovered in the late 19th Century.

One of the new dinosaur specimens, named Anchiornis huxleyi, is spectacular in its preservation.

It has extensive plumage covering its arms and tail, and also its feet - a "four-winged" arrangement, says Professor Xu from the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing.

'Immensely exciting'

"The first specimen we discovered earlier this year was incomplete," he told BBC News.

"Based on that specimen, we named it Anchiornis; and we thought it was a close relative of birds. But then we got a second specimen, which was very complete - beautifully preserved.

"All over the skeleton, you see feathers.

"Based on this second specimen, we realised that this was a much more important species, and definitely one of the most important species for our understanding of the origin of birds and of their flight."

Professor Xu believes the four-winged shape may have been a very important stage in the evolutionary transition from dinosaurs to birds.

Details of the latest discoveries have been presented this week at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontologists, being held this year at the University of Bristol, UK.

The renowned Bristol palaeontologist Michael Benton said the announcement was immensely exciting.

"Drawing the tree of life, it's fairly obvious that feathers arose before Archaeopteryx appears in the fossil record," he told BBC News.

"Now these fantastic new discoveries by Professor Xu Xing prove that once and for all.

"These new discoveries are maybe 10 million years older than Archaeopteryx."

[mr friendly guy]

Few thoughts and questions

1) so Archaeopteryx is still counted as the first bird right? Yes I am aware that what constitutes a species is just a convenient divide we give to make it easier to classify things. Biology doesn't have such clear cut separation and species is more of a continuum, and we were of such concepts since Darwin.

2) I thought velociraptor ? spelling, the real velociraptor not the Jurassic park version had feathers. Also IIRC based on a fossil discovered in China.

3) Suck it down cretinists creationists, not that their wall of ignorance will care that much.

[Surlethe]

2) I thought velociraptor ? spelling, the real velociraptor not the Jurassic park version had feathers. Also IIRC based on a fossil discovered in China.

Velociraptors were late Cretaceous dinosaurs, 67 mya according to this; Archaeopteryx was much older.

[Alyrium Denryle]

2) I thought velociraptor ? spelling, the real velociraptor not the Jurassic park version had feathers. Also IIRC based on a fossil discovered in China.

Velociraptors were late Cretaceous dinosaurs, 67 mya according to this; Archaeopteryx was much older.

Yeah. Most of the other feather bearing dinosaurs were either co-extant with archeopteryx or were younger.

Honestly I am more interested in the 4 winged arrangement. It has been shown that microraptor (also co-extant with archeopteryx) had a 4 winged arrangement that served as a stabilizer during gliding. If this organisms four wing arrangement is the same way, then it pretty much puts the nail in the coffin regarding the "ground up" hypothesis for the origin of bird flight.

[Anguirus]

Damn, I can't believe I forgot to post this here! I've been talking it up/sending it to friends all week.

It's also the oldest known troodontid, and assuming all the facts are in it pretty much murders a key objection to the theropods-into-birds argument, namely the "temporal problem," that Archaeopteryx appears earlier in the fossil record than dromaeosaurs, who have certain derived features thought to indicate a close relationship with the common ancestor of birds. This, however, is a feathered dromaeosaur who certainly predates Archeopteryx and certainly has four wings. Combine that with the recent papers on the real function of Velociraptor's claw (it's actually ideal for tree-climbing and piss-poor for gutting prey) and an interesting picture is starting to emerge.

[Surlethe]

Combine that with the recent papers on the real function of Velociraptor's claw (it's actually ideal for tree-climbing and piss-poor for gutting prey) and an interesting picture is starting to emerge.

I've recently been wondering about tree-living dinosaurs. Do you have any papers to cite for this? Also, if velociraptors were tree-climbers, why don't they have opposable digits?

[Anguirus]

^ Sure. Here's the New Scientist write-up, which includes links to the papers in question I believe:

[Alyrium Denryle]

Combine that with the recent papers on the real function of Velociraptor's claw (it's actually ideal for tree-climbing and piss-poor for gutting prey) and an interesting picture is starting to emerge.

I've recently been wondering about tree-living dinosaurs. Do you have any papers to cite for this? Also, if velociraptors were tree-climbers, why don't they have opposable digits?

Most animals that climb dont have those. Specifically, arboreal lizards, and most birds.

[Ypoknons]

It's also the oldest known troodontid...

I've always thought birds were closer to the Dromaeosaur side, so this is interesting.

[KroLazuxy_87]

Combine that with the recent papers on the real function of Velociraptor's claw (it's actually ideal for tree-climbing and piss-poor for gutting prey) and an interesting picture is starting to emerge.

I've recently been wondering about tree-living dinosaurs. Do you have any papers to cite for this? Also, if velociraptors were tree-climbers, why don't they have opposable digits?

Most animals that climb dont have those. Specifically, arboreal lizards, and most birds.

I'd imagine with the plant life being different back then, it simply may not have been as necessary.

[Anguirus]

^ I'm not sure what that has to do with it. As Alyrium said, completely opposable digits are one possible adaptation for tree-climbing but certainly not the only one possible. Claws can work fine.

[hongi]

I can't wait to see how Feduccia tries to spin this one.

1) so Archaeopteryx is still counted as the first bird right?

Well, it's not the first bird, but it's the most primitive (in the cladistic sense) that we've found.

[Shroom Man 777]

It's also the oldest known troodontid...

I've always thought birds were closer to the Dromaeosaur side, so this is interesting.

To be fair, the dromeosaurs and the troodons are very similar. Both dinosaur kinds even share toe claws, and with all sorts of small dinosaurs having feathers and with both dinosaur kinds confirmed to have feathers, they're even more similar!

[Darth Raptor]

It's also the oldest known troodontid...

I've always thought birds were closer to the Dromaeosaur side, so this is interesting.

To be fair, the dromeosaurs and the troodons are very similar. Both dinosaur kinds even share toe claws, and with all sorts of small dinosaurs having feathers and with both dinosaur kinds confirmed to have feathers, they're even more similar!

I couldn't even tell you what distinguishes the two families, to be honest; though I do know that while troodontids are very closely related to birds, dromaeosaurids might as well BE birds. Hell, there are flightless species of dromaeosaurid, and by that I mean descended from species that could actually fly.

[Alyrium Denryle]

It's also the oldest known troodontid...

I've always thought birds were closer to the Dromaeosaur side, so this is interesting.

To be fair, the dromeosaurs and the troodons are very similar. Both dinosaur kinds even share toe claws, and with all sorts of small dinosaurs having feathers and with both dinosaur kinds confirmed to have feathers, they're even more similar!

That is because they are sister taxa in the same clade, Paraves.

[LadyTevar]

Combine that with the recent papers on the real function of Velociraptor's claw (it's actually ideal for tree-climbing and piss-poor for gutting prey) and an interesting picture is starting to emerge.

I've recently been wondering about tree-living dinosaurs. Do you have any papers to cite for this? Also, if velociraptors were tree-climbers, why don't they have opposable digits?

Most animals that climb dont have those. Specifically, arboreal lizards, and most birds.

I give you the best example for no opposable digits in arboreal dwelling creatures:

No opposible thumb here! Or Here!

[Akkleptos]

Blasted! Since Anguirus' answer, you've spoiled my retort that any suitable-clawed animal would be able to climb trees, regardles of the species (of either the trees and the animals).

However, what I find interesting is whether these feathered "reptiles" (the distinction being en questions, as we don't know whether these animals were homeothermal as birds or heterothermal as reptiles from the fossil record) really lived an arboreal life, since such an explanation would bring us a step closer to classifying them as flying animals or their immediate precursors, tree-gliding animals, not entirely unlike the flying-lizards and flying-squirrels, which could themselves be considered precursors of flying -non-artropoda- animals.

[Darth Raptor]

It's academic: Insulation on a cold blooded animal is a death sentence.

[Winston Blake]

OK, so Velociraptors were not 7-foot lizardmen who could leap out and spill your intestines at any time OH GOD WHAT's THAT BEHIND YOU.

Instead, they were half-meter-high turkeys who spent their time climbing trees.

I eagerly await news that they did not emit spine-chilling screeches, but in fact clucked and sang. And that the Tyrannosaurus Rex was actually a giant Dodo that spent all its time sliding down muddy hillsides and running back up to the top again, with its mouth open in joy and its little hands outstretched.

Someone really should make a grand dino-monster movie with realistic killer-bird-o-saurs.

[Surlethe]

Huh, you learn a new thing every day [about claws and tree-climbing].

Someone really should make a grand dino-monster movie with realistic killer-bird-o-saurs.

I personally think velociraptors stalking you through the treetops is scarier than the conventional view. I mean, imagine the horror movie - you and your friends are walking through the woods, and suddenly feathery dinosaurs, all teeth and claws, start dropping out of the trees onto your party.

[Anguirus]

^ Yeah, especially since another study suggests that it was very hard to get a 'raptor off of you when it started climbing on prey with its claws.

I actually would rather like to see a horror movie with a realistic take on the Velociraptor, or perhaps a slightly bigger species. A human is actually smaller and weaker than the Protoceratops that we know for a fact it preyed upon. (The same scientist who has been doing all this biomechanics stuff with the toe-claws suggested a scenario by which the famous "death grip" fossil came about...essentially, the 'raptor got stuck in the Protoceratops' belly with his claws while being physically unable to bring his head around for a killing bite.)

And Tyrannosaurus is terrifying covered in down or not. So is Raptorex for that matter. The whole animal is designed to smash into something headfirst and murder the fucking hell out of it in one blow. Makes a Komodo dragon (which evolved to kill pygmy elephants with one bite, and almost certainly take humans occasionally) look like a total putz.

[KroLazuxy_87]

A more modern presentation of dinosaurs in Hollywood would not only be interesting to see, but it would actually educate the public a little more. Most people still base their knowledge of dinosaurs from what they saw in The Jurassic Park movies.

_________________________________________
I realize that my above 4:00 in the morning comment sounds rather, well, stupid.

What was in my head was that with plant life being radically different from the woods you're liable to find in your back yard, the use of a claw may have been more effective then than it still is today. Softer tree trunks for instance may make the use of claws for climbing that much easier.

I realize the comment may not be anything near groundbreaking(or even important) But that's what I was trying to get at.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I eagerly await news that they did not emit spine-chilling screeches, but in fact clucked and sang.

They might have. During the mating season. Look, a lot of pack animals use a wide variety of calls in order to communicate. We dont really have pack hunting birds, but we do have mammals. Best examples are dolphins and orca. They have contact calls, can issue commands etc. Birds sing in the mating season, but that does not mean they sing complex songs most of the rest of the time.

Imagine having a bunch of smaller raptors stalking you through the branches of trees, using short hoots and whistles to communicate their position to eachother, but that you cannot track because of the acoustics. If they do cluck and sing, that communication would be scary as shit.

And Tyrannosaurus is terrifying covered in down or not. So is Raptorex for that matter. The whole animal is designed to smash into something headfirst and murder the fucking hell out of it in one blow.

IIRC 30k pis for the bite... big railroad spike teeth. That thing basically existed by getting its jaws around something else' spinal column and breaking it. The arms would only really be useful as an anchor to keep the Rex' body moving that of its prey so that the torque created by the prey and the huge T rex head did not break the predator's neck...

(To demonstrate why that will happen, go up to a guy in a football helmet. You can break their neck's with a good twist...)

[Duckie]

The fearsome Velociraptor Mongoliensis!



Look at him! He's so precious. He's tiny and adorable- I want one so badly. They'd be adorable, and only slightly more dangerous than cats or dogs when domesticated. He'd chirrup and hop around, which would be adorable if it's anything like a bird.

God damn you Chicxulub.

[Seydlitz_k]

Man, the media is really slow on Dinosaur news takeup Anchiornis huxleyi was presented nearly a year ago. For a better, more scientific write up on it check out this page from the Tetrapod Zoology blog (Talked about in the second part of the article):

http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology ... art_ii.php

Tet Zoo also has two wonderful articles discussing the merits of "Birds/Tree climbing Dinosaurs came first" and "Dinosaurs came before Birds", which you can check out here (They're really good! have lots of references and sources as well. I am totally in love with Tet Zoo, best zoological blog out there.):

"Birds/Tree Climbing Dinos came first":
http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology ... thesis.php

"Dinosaurs come First":
http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology ... y_dont.php

I tend to agree with the latter position, for reasons pretty well explained in the article above. The TL;DNR version of the argument that birds come after dinosaurs first is that: There is no fossil evidence of small tree climbing dinosaur-birds, dromaeosaurs and similar dinosaurs are not younger than birds and are more basal than birds, and that wings+feathers aren't necessarily an adaptation for flight, and can be useful for running and climbing steep slopes.

Man, dinosaurs are awesome. And that feathered Velociraptor is really cute and cuddly!