Feathered Dinosaur Older than Archaeopteryx Found

[LadyTevar]

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.

Dammit... now *I* want one too.

[Akkleptos]

Not really sure you'd want one of these chicks around:

Phorusrhacids ("Rag-Bearers"), or terror birds, were a family of large carnivorous flightless birds that were the dominant predators in South America during the Cenozoic, 62–2 million years (Ma) ago.[2] They were roughly 1–3 meters (3–10 feet) tall. Their closest modern-day relatives are believed to be the 80 cm-tall seriemas. Titanis walleri, one of the larger species, is known from Texas and Florida in North America. This makes the phorusrhacids the only known example of large South American predators migrating north during the Great American Interchange (which occurred after the volcanic Isthmus of Panama land bridge rose ca. 3 Ma ago). It was once believed that T. walleri only became extinct around the time of the arrival of humans in North America,[3] but subsequent datings of Titanis fossils have failed to provide evidence for their survival more recently than 1.8 Ma ago.[4][5]

By the way... America is a continent, not a nation.

[Shroom Man 777]

I think the notion of a huge Tyrannosaurus rex, making a deep guttural sound, drool coming down from its HUEG gaping jaws, and with a massive form that's mostly scales but with some patches of feathery down on some places is a very scary one. It's like, imagine the bastard hybrid of a crocodile and a bear or something, times one hundred thousand million!

[Ypoknons]

The public definitely needs a Dino update since the last time Dinos hit the public consciousness was in Jurassic Park, which is now woefully outdated (though at that time its dynamics Dinos were modern enough). I couldn't believe I couldn't find a cuddly feathery raptor toy on the internet. The most risk anyone's willing to take a is few eye feathers.

[Duckie]

Are you kidding, Akkleptos? I want my own Brontornis for my velociraptor buddy and me to ride around on! It'd be awesome. Stupid climate change and humans killing megafauna.

[LadyTevar]

So when did the jaws/teeth become beaks?

[Duckie]

Beaks are lighter than jaws+teeth, since teeth are rather dense and heavy. On the other hand, you don't need to have a beak to fly, it just helps. So logically beaks would come after flight as birds are refining their capacity to fly. Exactly when I don't have a clue.

Some googling shows Confuciusornis from the Cretaceous has a beak, but apparently isn't an ancestor of modern birds but an extinct branch, so sometime after that.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Beaks are lighter than jaws+teeth, since teeth are rather dense and heavy. On the other hand, you don't need to have a beak to fly, it just helps. So logically beaks would come after flight as birds are refining their capacity to fly. Exactly when I don't have a clue.

Some googling shows Confuciusornis from the Cretaceous has a beak, but apparently isn't an ancestor of modern birds but an extinct branch, so sometime after that.

Well all that means is that the beak is ancestral to both clades. More than likely Confuciosornis and modern birds share a common beaked ancestor.

Maximum parsimony baby, yeah!

[Duckie]

Beaks are lighter than jaws+teeth, since teeth are rather dense and heavy. On the other hand, you don't need to have a beak to fly, it just helps. So logically beaks would come after flight as birds are refining their capacity to fly. Exactly when I don't have a clue.

Some googling shows Confuciusornis from the Cretaceous has a beak, but apparently isn't an ancestor of modern birds but an extinct branch, so sometime after that.

Well all that means is that the beak is ancestral to both clades. More than likely Confuciosornis and modern birds share a common beaked ancestor.

Maximum parsimony baby, yeah!

From what I read, things even closer to birds don't have toothless beaks, like Icthyornis, so apparantly the beak sans teeth was convergent evolution in confuciusornis and whatever the ancestor of the modern beaked bird is.

[Anguirus]

^ That actually makes quite a bit of sense. Once you are a toothy beaked flying bird there is going to be selection against teeth. A late lineage of pterosaurs also lost teeth (think Pteranodon and Quetzacoatlus) and for those that didn't, I recall the teeth made up most of the weight of the cranium, and a fair amount of the weight in the skeleton as a whole.

[Alyrium Denryle]

^ That actually makes quite a bit of sense. Once you are a toothy beaked flying bird there is going to be selection against teeth. A late lineage of pterosaurs also lost teeth (think Pteranodon and Quetzacoatlus) and for those that didn't, I recall the teeth made up most of the weight of the cranium, and a fair amount of the weight in the skeleton as a whole.

On the other hand, getting teeth back in the event that they provide a selective advantage that outweighed the flight advantage (say, prey capture).

I would need to look at a good phylogeny.