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This may actually be the most important news story that will ever be posted here, and certainly the most important so far.
A new feathered dinosaur, Sciurumimus has been found in Germany (I assume Solnhoffen, the link doesn't actually say), and could bring a huge revolution to therapods everywhere.
So far, all feathered dinosaurs have been Coelurusaurs (Inc. Tyrannosauroids, Therazinosauroids, Maniraptorans etc), but thus new discovery has been identified as a Megalosauroud, a group of Carnosaurs, which is the sister group to Coelurusauria- I'll explain the taxonomy more tomorrow when I'm on my laptop instead of my phone), meaning that feathers most likely (90%+) evolved in the earliest therapods at least, and that it is possible that ALL therapods were feathered. However, as the Ceratosaurians (includes Noasaurids and Abelisaurids) split off from Therapoda (again, I'll explain more soon) before the main Teneturan split of Carnosauria & Coelurusauria, it is possible that they were not feathered. (Scaly underbelly skin impressions have been found for some abelisaurs). Of course, there is a slim chance that feathers evolved separately in Carnosaurs and Coelurusaurs, but it is slim. I'll explain the taxonomy soon in a big blog update after my fieldwork..
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/07/120702-squirrel-tail-feathers-dinosaurs-fossil-science-proceedings/
A new feathered dinosaur, Sciurumimus has been found in Germany (I assume Solnhoffen, the link doesn't actually say), and could bring a huge revolution to therapods everywhere.
So far, all feathered dinosaurs have been Coelurusaurs (Inc. Tyrannosauroids, Therazinosauroids, Maniraptorans etc), but thus new discovery has been identified as a Megalosauroud, a group of Carnosaurs, which is the sister group to Coelurusauria- I'll explain the taxonomy more tomorrow when I'm on my laptop instead of my phone), meaning that feathers most likely (90%+) evolved in the earliest therapods at least, and that it is possible that ALL therapods were feathered. However, as the Ceratosaurians (includes Noasaurids and Abelisaurids) split off from Therapoda (again, I'll explain more soon) before the main Teneturan split of Carnosauria & Coelurusauria, it is possible that they were not feathered. (Scaly underbelly skin impressions have been found for some abelisaurs). Of course, there is a slim chance that feathers evolved separately in Carnosaurs and Coelurusaurs, but it is slim. I'll explain the taxonomy soon in a big blog update after my fieldwork..
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/07/120702-squirrel-tail-feathers-dinosaurs-fossil-science-proceedings/
Last edited by macrocephale on Fri Jul 06, 2012 6:12 pm; edited 1 time in total
