The Dinosaur Thread

[Carcharodon]

I've said it before, but cloning dinosaurs would be cruel. Our environment is completely different now than it was at the end of the Cretaceous, let alone the prime of the Jurassic or Triassic periods. They would quickly fall victim to various bacteria and viruses that didn't exist back then and they therefore would have no defense against them.

Not every immune response needs to be highly targeted to be effective. Besides, a major aspect of immuno-specificity is that it is often acquired rather than inherent. Would some die? Certainly. But I really think you're overstating the danger and risk to the animals.

Just HOW different is our environment? How different is the atmospheric composition? How different is the climate? These are important factors to consider before simply passing it off as "completely different."

 

[SuperFerret]

Not every immune response needs to be highly targeted to be effective. Besides, a major aspect of immuno-specificity is that it is often acquired rather than inherent. Would some die? Certainly. But I really think you're overstating the danger and risk to the animals.

Just HOW different is our environment? How different is the atmospheric composition? How different is the climate? These are important factors to consider before simply passing it off as "completely different."

I understand how immune responses work, but it still feels wrong for us to bring an extinct animal back to life and expose it to such risks.

 

[Timstuff]

BTW, I hate the current paleo-artists' trend of sticking hypothetical feathers on every single theropod dinosaur reconstruction these days. Sure, there have been fossils of feather imprints or nodes which might have held feathers on certain smaller dinos, but that doesn't mean every slender bipedal carnivore had them.

I agree that it's a pretty lame trend. I could understand putting it on the smaller therapods if there's evidence to back it up, but to see a T-Rex covered in feathers, even though there's no evidence within the actual T-Rex fossils to support it, just plain ruins it for me. And when I think of raptors, I'm always going to think of those scaly snake-like monsters from Jurassic Park (even though obviously, those things were based on the Dinonychus and Utahraptor rather than actual Velociraptors, which were tiny).

I understand how immune responses work, but it still feels wrong for us to bring an extinct animal back to life and expose it to such risks.

Why should we be so worried about the ethics behind reversing the extinction of an ancient lizard, when science does far less ethical things to actual human beings all the time?

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

The smaller Dino's are the ones who would need feathers to preserve their body heat. An adult T-Rex? I highly doubt it. If anything, it would be for sexual display.

 

[Timstuff]

Barney gets a scientifically-approved makeover!

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

t:

 

[The Battousai]

BTW, I hate the current paleo-artists' trend of sticking hypothetical feathers on every single theropod dinosaur reconstruction these days. Sure, there have been fossils of feather imprints or nodes which might have held feathers on certain smaller dinos, but that doesn't mean every slender bipedal carnivore had them.

It has to do with terapod lineage - basically, any therapod group descended from one that had feathers would likely have feathers as well. It's clearly not something that would be automatic for every one of those descendant lines, but it's very possible to be the case for them.

 

[Timstuff]

I'm not 100% convinced that it was the bigger Therapods that came from the small ones though, as opposed to the other way around.

 

[The Battousai]

I'm not 100% convinced that it was the bigger Therapods that came from the small ones though, as opposed to the other way around.

I'd look at the work of paleontolgists on this topic for their thoughts. I couldn't give much detail, personally.

 

[Timstuff]

Wouldn't it make more sense though, for the smaller ones that are closer in size to early birds to be higher up on the evolutionary ladder than their bigger cousins, and therefore be more likely to have feathers than the big ones?

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

Wouldn't it make more sense though, for the smaller ones that are closer in size to early birds to be higher up on the evolutionary ladder than their bigger cousins, and therefore be more likely to have feathers than the big ones?

Higher up on the evolutionary ladder? I'd say no, that would be a huge assumption. All animals evolve at different rates, and just because they look the same after millions of years, doesn't mean they are exactly the same. However, it would be in the interest of smaller dino's to have feathers, but it would also benefit baby T-rex's and Carcharodontosauruses as well.

 

[The Battousai]

Wouldn't it make more sense though, for the smaller ones that are closer in size to early birds to be higher up on the evolutionary ladder than their bigger cousins, and therefore be more likely to have feathers than the big ones?

First of all, there is no ladder That's somewhat of a misconception.

Secondly, what needs to be taken into account is the placement of the earliest-known feathered dinosaur in the "family tree" of the therapods and see where the various groups lie.

These groupings are based on a combination of dating, region, and morphology.

 

[The Lizard]

There is, however still debate about the so-called "protofeather" filaments found in fossils of early tyrannosauroids and other basal theropods...

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/274/1620/1823

They could merely be the impressions of collagen fibers.

 

[BestGirl]

Feathers on dinosaurs are .

 

[SuperFerret]

I like them on the smaller ones.

 

[BestGirl]

I like them on the smaller ones.

What smaller dinosaurs had feathers other than raptors?

 

[SuperFerret]

Triceratops? I don't know, I wasn't around back then, and I'm not up on the newest theories. I just like the idea of feathers on smaller dinosaurs than on the larger ones.

 

[Timstuff]

There is, however still debate about the so-called "protofeather" filaments found in fossils of early tyrannosauroids and other basal theropods...

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/274/1620/1823

They could merely be the impressions of collagen fibers.

I also read that a while back. When I draw Therapods like Raptors I usually draw them with collagen frills because I think it looks a lot better than feathers. I don't draw the T-Rex with any sort of feathers or collagen though since there's still debate even amongst the feather crowd as to whether or not there's enough evidence to suggest that the T-Rex had anything other than scales.

BTW, here's what the collagen frills on a modern day iguana look like. I think they'd look good on a Raptor.

 

[Spider-Who?]

First off, incase no one is aware, the 2nd episode of a new series, Clash of the Dinosaurs airs on the Discovery Channel this sunday evening. I caught the first one last week, and the CGI is LOADS better than Walking with Dinosaurs (which I loved). It seems to be a pretty cool show. The only issue I had with the first episode is that they kept showing close ups of dinosaurs pooping and laying eggs. Over. And over. …And over.

Second, jumping back to the talk about T. Rex being a scavenger or hunter…I’m in the camp that thinks the Rex had the capability for both, based on his size, sense of smell and sight, strength in jaw and neck, etc; however, I keep seeing people mention how the Rex was “built to run.” I need to (respectfully) disagree with that. A 15-20 foot tall, 7-10 ton animal could NEVER be “built to run”. Its just not possible. The shear mechanics of the amount of muscle needed to allow an animal of that size to not only RUN, but run for any amount of worthy distance, is ludicrous. Do you know how much muscle mass his legs would require to justify a “built for running” label? And what if he fell while running? His tiny arms would snap in half trying to keep itself from smacking its face into the ground. Scientists have already proven it’s just impossible. Don’t let the cool jeep scene in JP cloud the (some times lame) truth like in this case.

At MOST, the Rex might have been able to sprint over very short distances; just long and fast enough (scientists estimate barely 20mph) to catch and quickly subdue slow moving prey. Think of the Rex like an alligator – he would have been an ambush predator – lying in wait for hours waiting for a sick or young dinosaur to wander to close. A sudden, quick burst of relative speed from his hiding place to cover a (very) short distance is all he’d be able to manage.

That’s my two cents, based on things I’ve read and seen concerning the topic. If anyone has any more recently updated finds on the topic, please pass it forward






Oh, and feathers on a T Rex are dumb.

 

[Timstuff]

I'm not saying the T-Rex would be a marathon runner, anyway. I agree that it probably could make teeth-first dashes at prey, though, and that's what I mean by "built to run." It's got a very aerodynamic shape and a pretty well balanced body, so if it caught a slower or weaker dinosaur off guard it could probably sprint at them faster than they could get away.

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

T-Rex looks like an animal not above scavenging. Some scientists believe it had septic saliva similar to Komodo dragons.

 

[Iron_Stark]

Did anyone see the thing on 60 Minutes a few weeks ago where a scientist lady poured acid on a dino bone and saw blood vessels?

They said in 5 years they could clone a dino using a chicken.

 

[Timstuff]

T-Rex looks like an animal not above scavenging. Some scientists believe it had septic saliva similar to Komodo dragons.

If a T-Rex came across a free meal I doubt it would pass up. It's not like a 25 foot tall animal with a brain the size of one of its teeth has an ego.

 

[SuperFerret]

If a T-Rex came across a free meal I doubt it would pass up. It's not like a 25 foot tall animal with a brain the size of one of its teeth has an ego.

I actually think that the Tyrannosaur's brain was fairly big for a dinosaur, and was probably bigger than its tooth. At any rate, brain size doesn't directly correspond with intelligence.

 

[redmarvel]

I think it's time for the Dinosaur Song