Dinosaurs

>>2320906
You were born 66000000 years late.
Tough luck bro.

>Tfw you wont see a troup of BLM protesters get torn apart by an hungry velociraptor.

I know famalam... I know.

Didn't Jack Horner say it would take around 50 years to make a non avian dinosaur?

>>2320974
He did!? :0

>>2320934
That would be cool, but they dindu nuffin tho.

>>2320928
Born in the wrong generation.

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>>2320974
>If someone was willing to do it, which no geneticist seriously tried to do.
50yrs is a significant chunk of your life, especially when most geneticists are at least in their mid30s; may not be able to see the end result.
It's also very expensive with little to zero net positive in return, especially in comparison to the cost. After all, it would essentially be a mutated chicken with fingers, teeth and an elongated tail; still pretty much chicken in every other way. At best, it would just be bird(avian dinosaur) that appear like a non-avian dinosaur.

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>Mfw I will never stare on awestruck as the Lizard-Gods roam the land.

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>>2320934

I have a better use for attack velociraptors, /pol/ack.

Also

'The fuck back to your board and all that shit.

>>2321129
>>2320974
I mean, engineering an organism to LOOK like a dinosaur is all we could possibly do. Cloning obviously won't work, and with today's technology it would be near impossible to successfully engineer a fully functioning organism. In the future maybe we could make a replicant with 3d-printed organs...maybe.
>MFW we will never have the perfect B.O.W.

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>MFW I'll never race over the countryside on the back of a 20 foot long deathbird

>>2321167
That's the American dream.

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>>2321129

>>2321455
Snip-snap peeper

>>2321484
It's cooler than all the other peepers.

>>2321157
holy shit that painting rocks

>>2320906
you CAN go see them. visit a museum

>>2321594
OP clearly meant LIVING nonavian dinosaurs, smartass.

>>2321651
well who would wanna see them anyways. theyd attack u

>>2320906
Can't wait for this meme to die.
Dinosaurs were around for hundreds of millions of years before feathers were invented.

>>2321164
Not just that, but reduced oxygen in the air means we could only create things that look like small dinosaurs.

So yeah, in 20 years you could mutate chicken stock into a bambi-raptor. Then what?

>>2321889
what?

>>2321936
Isn't that just a meme? The oxygen is the same or slightly more than when most lines of dinosaurs disappeared?
Also Dinosaurs have much better lung technology so they don't need as much oxygen anyway

>>2321936
Mesozoic air had less oxygen on average than today, though the difference is rather small.
The ability to grow huge is mostly due to their anatomy, a very effecient respiratory system, pneumatic bones, etc. Remember that there have been some pretty massive flightless birds too. I suppose that the lack of a long tail and the overspecialized forelimbs must play a role in them not reaching the sizes of non-avian theropods.

>>2321936
Oxygen content in the atmosphere would only affect how large arthropods could grow due to them taking it in through their exoskeleton.

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>>2322237
>the difference is rather small.
>38% reduction in O2
it was the lowest level of oxygen ever seen by multicellular life.

>>2321769
Not Psitaccosaurus. Probably.

>>2322414
idk about that, the beak is pretty nice on that thing

>>2322258
Depends on the time.

>>2322482
the time when dinosaurs were largest is the time when oxygen was lowest.

>>2322521
>Chart clearly shows that the lowest oxygen point is Early Jurassic
>Dinosaurs were largest Late Jurassic- Mid Cretaceous.

>>2322557
>Dinosaurs were largest Late Jurassic- Mid Cretaceous
this is incorrect.

>>2322560
It is objectively correct.

>>2322565
You haven't read your Foster.

>>2322566
Almost every sauropod with a body mass greater the 30 tons (with the exception of the large Alamosaurus material) lived during this time.
Post a source that says otherwise.

>>2322568
>Post a source that says otherwise.
I already did. Foster.
He did something like 5 very dry and long chapters on evolution of size both as average size, peak size, and biomass over the period from the mid Jurassic to the late cretaceous.

read it if you like. You'll find size steadily decreased by any measure as oxygen increased.

>>2322569
Maybe in terms of absolute biomass and average size, but thats not what the discussion is about. We're talking about potential size of individual species. Average size may be smaller, but the majority of all the heavyweight sauropods lived during Late Jurassic- Mid Cretaceous.

>>2322573
>the majority of all the heavyweight sauropods lived during Late Jurassic- Mid Cretaceous.
mid Jurassic to late Jurassic would be accurate.
The Gondwanan Sauropods weren't contenders for top size or top population density, which isn't surprising since large size reduced population numbers in cases other than Jurassic Laurasia where an extraordinary climate driven by extreme CO2 produced wide open vegetation prairies. For sheer density and diversity of gigantic dinosaurs the Jurassic beats the Cretaceous without competition.

It also had the weakest diversity known from any fauna, including mammals, reptiles and fish.

>>2322574
Name one sauropod from the Mid Jurassic that reached 30 tones. And I definitely think that the Gondwonan sauropods (Paralatitan, Antactosaurus, etc) were definitely contenders, at least according to every size estimate in the last 10 years.

And why was diversity so low during the Cretaceous? Is it sampling bias or just higher levels of O2 meant lower CO2 and less plant growth, leading to lower diversity?

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Carnotaurus is cooler than your favorite dinosaur. This is fact.

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>>2322730
Not really, it was kind of pathetic actually.

>>2322735

Sure, if by pathetic you mean fuckin' rad speed machine.

>>2322747
All I'm saying is it would get its shit kicked in by anything weighing more than 1,000 lbs.

>>2322788

Yeah sure, if they could fucking catch it

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>>2322790
Well if badassness is determined by how fast something can run away, then behold the most badass dinosaur.

>>2322793

Nah that doesn't have horns and it's not a carnivore at the same time.

>>2322798
You just imblied that speed is what makes a dinosaur badass, there you go.

>>2322803

I implied it was a factor.

I also said cool, not "badass", but Carnotaurus is pretty badass too.

>>2322810
Enjoy you're weak jawed, small head, no arms carnotaur. Literally any predator >1,000 lbs could take it out as well as most herbivores.

>>2322821

I will, since he's way fucking cooler than your favorite dinosaur

This ain't the fucking pokemon meta or some shit, I'm not lookin for pure optimized combat ability.

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>>2322823
You can have both.

>>2322581
>objective facts
>weight estimates
out of the hundreds of size metrics we do know you pick the only one we don't.

you also assume I or other paleontologists are talking about the largest size of the largest animal when we say dinosaur size peaked in the Jurassic. The Gondwanan sauropods are known from very few skeletons, the Laurasians are known from literally thousands of examples. You want to pretend we're not talking about average size, but you didn't bring size up, I did. and you never asked what I meant by it.

I said Jurassic faunas were lacking diversity, not the Cretaceous. You don't have to sit here and debate me about stuff that's already published by others, you could get off your ass and go read.

>>2322840
We're arguing about different things. This particular discussion was about the maximum size potential of individuals and whether or not they could survive in today's atmosphere. until you barged in and started trying to show everyone up with something only vaguely related. The lack of Gondwonan sauropods probably suffers from sampling bias far more so than whether or not they actually existed in large quantities.

>>2322673
inaccurate. feathers should cover the second&third manual digits

>>2322798
not a carnivore? somewhat inaccurate statement. ornithomimids may have ingested significant amounts of meat (eggs, small vertebrates, carrion, etc.).

>>2322848
>This particular discussion was about the maximum size potential of individuals
see how you made that up?

you thought it was. That doesn't mean it was.

>>2322848
>trying to show everyone up with something only vaguely related.
you are the only person I corrected, and that's because you were calling the time period with literally the lowest amount of oxygen in the history of multicellular life on earth a "rather small" difference.

which is so grossly inaccurate as to be take as a joke if I didn't already know how stupid and prone to invention you are.

make shit up if you like. Don't argue when someone teaches you the truth.

>>2322840
>you also assume I or other paleontologists are talking about the largest size of the largest animal when we say dinosaur size peaked in the Jurassic.

Strictly speaking, that would be the peak, yes.

>>2322856
>Strictly speaking, that would be the peak, yes
It's meaningless. By that measure animals reached their largest size now. It says nothing about the size of animals in general.

>>2322860

I'm not part of your conversation, but it's about the modern environment supporting a single species, right? The peak size of one animal is absolutely relevant to that conversation.

>>2322866
>it's about the modern environment supporting a single species, right?
no. why would you think that?

not that it matters, peak individual size in dinosaurs occurred at the same time and place peak average size did. I'm just doing my best to avoid another childish pokemon battle to decide which was the largest sauropod. I realize once that starts we won't be talking science anymore.

e.g. idiot up there demanding to know which sauropod weighed more despite the fact that their weight is not known and never will be.

>>2322866
>it's about the modern environment supporting a single species, right?
the reason this approach is outdated and no longer used is because of insects of the Carboniferous.

Scientists used to point to a single insect as proof that elevated oxygen levels resulted in larger insects.

this idea has been destroyed by the following facts:
1. that insect had a large wingspan but its body size was smaller than some modern insects.
2. insects on average were smaller then than they are now.
3. the supposed gigantic insect actually evolved during times of REDUCED oxygen.

having been embarrassed in regard to insects and oxygen, paleontologists aren't likely to make the same mistake with dinosaurs. We don't talk about the top size of individuals, that isn't informative. Especially when these animals apparently didn't have a "top size" we can measure.

>>2322854
That actually wasn't me.
>>2322853
That's exactly what everyone was talking about, we were talking about how an individual large animal would fare in today's atmosphere and you but in and start talking about average biomass.
>>2322866
This guy gets it.

>>2322880
>we were talking about how an individual large animal would fare in today's atmosphere
no you weren't
you were trying to correct an anon that said their large size was the result of oxygen concentration.

and in your "correction" one of you made some shit up and tried to pass it off as fact.

I'm pleased I've taught /an/ about O2 reduction in the Mesozoic, but some of you are poor students. You'll learn better.

>>2322883
Again, that wasn't me.

>>2322884
perhaps the most meaningless statement you can make on an anonymous board.

>>2322885
More meaningless than pretending youre a teacher come to enlighten us all on the atmospheric content when nobody fucking asked you to?

>>2322886
"I" am not pretending anything.
I have for a fact taught /an/ a thing they did not know.

or at least "Anonymous" did.

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>>2322888

>>2322890
high praise coming from literally the most autistic fanbase on the internet.

Maybe in 20 or 30 years we will have the technology to recreate these critters convincingly in a virtual 3D environment. There is still hope.

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>>2320906
Are Dragons considered Dinosaurs?

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>>2322943
no

>>2322950
>Falling for the Chinese feather meme
Dragons are more dinosaur than a fucking cockatrice

>>2321157
>implying BLM isn't cancer
>imply Donald Trump doesn't ALREADY have Tyrannosaur embryos RIGHT NOW AS WE SPEAK

>>2322867
>why would you think that?

Because of
>>2321936

>>2322883

I think you ought to work on your reading comprehension m8

>>2323028
I'm not sure you understand the difference between
>all the dinosaurs would be small
and
>what's the largest dinosaur we could make?
but I'm going to let you faggots have your fun and try to stop shitting up your pokemon thread.

>>2323030
Thats not what this is about, this is about him trying to butt in and enlighten us with irrelevant facts that no one asked for.

>>2323045
your not Dr. Jones, are you?

>>2323048
>trying to butt in and enlighten us with irrelevant facts that no one asked for
only reason I did is because you were doing the same.

and the only reason you were doing it is because I did it to you before.

and now I've done it again. If history repeats it should only take you about 5 years to start spouting the facts I've given you today. We shall see.

>your not Dr. Jones, are you?
We named the dog Indiana!

>>2323051
No for real though, I knew a paleontologist on another forum named Dr. Jones, a real arrogant know-it-all dickhead like you.

The difference is that what I said was relevant to the original point trying to be made.

>>2323048
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qQurWUCnzs

>>2323052
>I knew a paleontologist on another forum named Dr. Jones, a real arrogant know-it-all dickhead like you.
kek
it's a job requirement.

what I said was relevant to your point and in time I expect you to be repeating it like an arrogant know-it-all dickhead.

actual paleontologist here
what's the problem folks

>>2323055

>>2323054 He's being mean to me!

>>2323055
We can't decide if Allosaurus is a tyrannosaurid.

>The skull and teeth of Allosaurus were modestly proportioned... Each premaxilla (the bones that formed the tip of the snout), held five teeth with D-shaped cross-sections... The teeth became shorter, narrower, and more curved toward the back of the skull.

>Tyrannosaurids, like their tyrannosauroid ancestors, were heterodont, with premaxillary teeth D-shaped in cross section and smaller than the rest.

>>2323058
>Allosaurus not an allosaurid

What?

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>>2323061
It's an autistic joke.
Just like the autistic "clappers not flappers, raptors couldn't pronate their wrists" joke.

>>2323065
Was not aware of this, thank you.
Anywhere else I can find dinosaur-autism jokes?

>>2323066
look up david peters

>>2323066
Right here, twice monthly when I get my period.
or read Darren Naish's blog. He gets off some good ones too.

>>2323068
darren naish is a master of april fools jokes, i lol'd a couple years ago when he did the one linking mammals to amphisbaenians

>>2323065
anon do you have a link/pdf for the full text of that paper

>>2323071
He's a funny guy. I try not to read his stuff because every time something occurs to me I google it and find out Naish thought of it exactly one year and one month before I did. I don't want to contaminate my curriculum so I ignore him.

>>2323068
Oh cool, I just recently started getting into the paleoblogsphere, Ive been following Tet Zoo and Love in theTime of Chasmosaurs. What are some other good ones?

>>2323072
No Carpenter is extremely anal about taking down free copies. Probably because he put it in his book and charges you $28 for it.

Let me see how many pages it is, I might be able to just capture and post it.

>>2323075
anything that those guys link to, lol

>>2323077
i lied. im not really a paleontologist (yet?). im an aging undergrad and i just took a vert paleo class.

>>2323072
appears to be 15 pages without references.
would you like me to convert it and dump it here?

>>2323082
yeah, that would be nice. might not read it right away but I like to collect papers in electronic format.

>>2323081
>i just took a vert paleo class.
I know, I don't expect to meet actual paleontologists here. They're all on facebook basking in their fame and free pussy.

>>2323088
they're normies in terms of memes and politics and shit but i swear to god you have to be a genius to be a paleontologist. the profession is probably one of the most rigorous in terms of non-quantitative science (knowing anatomy, nomenclature)

>>2323088
like i feel unworthy to be in the presence of paleontologists, the prof who teaches that class went to every single continent (including antarctica) in 1 year. absolutely based

>>2323092
I'm one of the anons who started this dumpsterfire in my first year of double majoring in Petrol. Geo and Paleontology (I would just study paleontology, but I don't want to be poor for the rest of my life).
What am I in for?

>>2321157
>He hates BLM
>He must be a neo nazi skinhead!
Fuck off

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>>2323092
we teach anatomy to med students. So much anatomy.

commencing dump

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>>2323103
>What am I in for?
cores and forams

>>2323103
paleo is fucking awesome dude. if you like traveling its lit. we need more paleontologists desperately, especially vertebrate specialists. you can make a good profit if you know your stuff or end up working for the oil companies - you would be studying conodonts and stuff, etc. but paleontologists nowadays seem to be more and more biologists than geologists - i think this is an artefact of the reliance on cladistics and phylogenetic analysis which unfortunately does not usually take stratigraphy or geography into account (or common sense, for that matter, in some cases). workers spend a lot of time comparing morphology and I feel like the clarity of trees could be improved by incorporating geographic or stratigraphic info as character states, which is hard to do. so a background in geology is obviously excellent but expect to take some bio classes.

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>>2323118

>>2323116
thank you my dude, i appreciate this lil act of piracy.
i still have to pop out the dictionary when i see anatomical nomenclature i dont know the meaning of, and i was reading graduate level texts about paleo while i was in junior high. I've been visiting palaeos.com for like 15 years now.

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>>2323119
>the clarity of trees could be improved by incorporating geographic or stratigraphic info as character states, which is hard to do.
it's done automatically since if you can remember where the christa tuberalis is you'll have no problem remembering which continents and timeframes have allosauroids or whatever.

we don't stick it in the table of characters because that would limit us from finding animals in new places
>it sure looks like Allosaurus but it's in Portugal so it can't be
we let facts inform our trees, not the other way round

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>>2323122
no worries. It's actually a great book if you ever decide to do some heavy reading. Well worth the price.

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>>2323126

>>2323123
yeah i dont know what im talking about. lol
i'm actually majoring in geography so im pretty interested in biogeography though. i feel like for some taxa it's kind of an underexplored topic

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>>2323127

>>2323119
I do plan on working for oil companies and doing vert paleo on the side. Average oil geology salary is like 100k starting out so I should be able to fund side projects no problem.

>>2323126
is this paper part of a bigger publication?

>>2323130
budget your time then anon, it might be hard picking one over the other. but depending on where you end up at for your petro job you might have access to some good fossil sites, institutions, or both, which might help you out.

>>2323132
I'm hoping to do a few years working then a few years fossil hunting and world traveling (huge ancient history buff too), then back to working. I just pray I don't end up in Alaska, Saudi Arabia, or some other shithole.

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>>2323130
Yeah, I made my money in metals mining and environmental. I'm retired now. Doesn't take long.

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>>2323128
it's a fascinating topic with way too few people working on it. It's not as glamorous I suppose.
>>2323131
The Carnivorious Dinosaurs, Ken Carpenter, Indiana University Press.

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>>2323134
>I just pray I don't end up in Alaska, Saudi Arabia, or some other shithole.
kek

>>2323134
dude, alaska is a big new hotspot for paleo. lots of cretaceous sites bearing dinosaurs. and saudi arabia, while indeed sorta shitty, is fairly close to some EXCELLENT sites - if you ever get the chance to go to Lebanon, seize it, there are some of the oldest fossiliferous amber there in the world. Middle east in general is underexplored in terms of paleo. If only the political situation wasn't so poor.

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>>2323138

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>>2323140

>>2323139
Yes but I enjoy sunlight and also not getting killed in a terrorist attack.

>>2323138
Is it inevitable?

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>>2323141

>>2323136
i think it has more to do with how pertinent it is for scientists. It does no good for biologists that, say, the transition from therapsids to mammals occured in South Africa 240 mya, only that it occurred. Biogeography is much more important and well studied for more recent groups (Cenozoic, basically) - although dino biogeography has really improved over the years. And i'm almost positive that my uni library has the Carpenter book - but i dont wanna waste time scanning it now that anon has been dumping it

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>>2323142
>Is it inevitable?
you go where the money is, that's inevitable.
I stayed in Colorado but we're lucky that way.

>>2323142
i'm fairly positive many of the lebanese sites are in the Christian areas, which for better or worse means they'll be safe. my family is of Maronite extraction so I know these things. i guess my advice is to go wherever the taxa you're interested in occur.

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>>2323144
Yeah, it's actually invaluable in understanding how animals evolved and why. We have tons of ghost lineages that resolve once we look at how animals moved over time.

it's fascinating stuff.

15/15

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>>2323149

>>2323149
i think biogeography is staring all the mysteries of eutherian mammal phylogeny straight in the face, to be quite honest. I have more than a sneaking suspicion that the Hyaenodontidae are part of the Afrotheria cohort - their first occurrence, iirc, is in Late Palaeocene Morocco along with early paenungulates, at a time when Africa was totally isolated as a continent. I'm fairly positive the notion of a monophyletic Creodonta is dead.

>>2323148
I'm from Colorado Springs (at Ft. Hays State now) and my personal interest is Morrison Formation so I'm already very familiar with the area, but like>>2323146
said, I don't really get to choose where to go.

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>>2323150
lel

>>2323152
well if you get a break or sabbatical you should spend it fossil collecting no matter where you go. im going on a field trip to Kansas this May for a course and I expect to pick up some shark teeth or such and such from the ol' Western Interior Seaway. prof said he'd buy me a beer for each find, lol

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>>2323153

>>2323152
I attended Mines and did my thesis on the Morrison. I've done some work on our dinosaurs you may or may not have read.
>>2323151
both are well above my paygrade. I've never had a passion for mammals though.

>>2323157
Oh really could I get a link? And I was considering going to Mines but everyone there seemed like they wanted to kill themselves and Ft Hays was way cheaper and offered me a track scholarship.

>>2323157
i think its time for mammals to get popular again. I was really excited that some mammal guys are using digital elevation models (I study GIS) to study mammal teeth. it seems like since the feathered dino boom in the 90s up to now mammals are out of the limelight. which is kind of par for the course considering how dinosaurs got shafted peaking in the Eisenhower years, essentially.

>>2323158
sorry, I enjoy my anonymity. Keep reading and you'll stumble across me though. Mines is a slog. My kid got accepted and I think I talked him out of it. He went to CSU where I did my masters. So much nicer. A perfect place to study autistic animal science.

>>2323159
>I study GIS
nice. I often wished I had.

I disliked mammals just because they're much more popular with paleontologists. I mean the public loves dinosaurs but scientists are more interested in human evolution. Dinosaurs are a silly sort of dead end to study though. I don't care much about birds, but dinosaurs didn't really go anywhere other than that.

I just loved them as a kid I guess. And I grew up in dinosaur country.

>>2323161
I've probably come across you already. I've go to go to bed, I've got an early Eng 121 class tomorrow morning. Thanks for the advice.

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>>2323163
a pleasure. Good night.

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>>2323164

>>2323162
yeah youre right about mammal popularity. I guess mammals have never really been UNpopular, but I guess dinosaurs and stem birds are starting to rival them in terms of new publications - in the postwar period prior to Ostrom I bet the number of yearly publications on dinosaurs could be counted on one or two hands.

>>2323165
kekylorhychus. I just read an interesting paper that demonstrates caseids possessed mammalian style diaphragms, presumably as an aquatic adaptation (they pointed to the wide, paddle like phalanges as additional evidence - not unreasonable). It seems like pelycosaurs are more mammal like than we thought. Night all, got class early.

>>2323165
I love that thing

were you the anon that posted this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZE_dBxM9IE

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>>2323167
>in the postwar period prior to Ostrom I bet the number of yearly publications on dinosaurs could be counted on one or two hands.
yeah, I found it interesting that birds were known to be dinosaurs clear back in the 1800's but that was largely forgotten by the turn of the century.

Dinosaurs were treated as a polyphyletic grade with pterosaurs and giant marine reptiles lumped in with them. Weird how having nobody working on it made us go backwards so hard.

Makes me wonder what other science we could lose just because it's not popular enough. Dinosaurs are a fad, but one that doesn't seem to be slowing. And there's lots of money in selling the image of them. The reality isn't nearly as exciting.

>>2323171
Well, i dunno. I think the fact that they were real, functioning animals with complex and varied lifestyles makes them more exciting than a bunch of scary-movie beasts. Maybe it's my naivete, or maybe you're just jaded. Maybe they really are boring. I think no organism on this planet can really be described as boring.

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>>2323172
no, the idea of them is very exciting, the rocks themselves aren't often that interesting. You can spend a lifetime trying to pull one clear picture of a single animal out of countless dusty drawers and tiny rock fragments. The public gets the whole dinosaur, and that's exciting. All the little bits that make up that big picture are just...
less impressive.

>>2323173
well, yes, and I do get discouraged by the difficulty of it. But if new genera are described by the dozens every year then at least a few of us must be getting lucky

>>2323156
this pic is interesting bc newer research indicates Andrewsarchus would have looked a lot more like an entelodont

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>>2323176
Publish or perish
We are finding new animals at an unprecedented rate but we go through periodic contractions where new taxa are synonymized en masse.

overall not a bad time to be a paleontologist though. There's certainly more interest than we've had in well over a century.

>>2323179
Well there's a bright side to taxonomic bickering about synonymy or whatnot in that it's an excuse to publish without necessarily mounting an expedition to collect new material. There's always gonna be stuff lying around in collections to reevaluate

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>>2323180
collecting is the fun part. But you're right. Most people get most of their publications in the letters section. That's why I love lurking paleontology forums on facebook and elsewhere. It's fascinating to read what people say outside the journals. There's this whole microcosm of opinions roiling under the surface. Much like your own. People just putting 2 and 2 together out of interest. Personalities and agendas colliding.

>>2323182
Yeah i really should stop being autistic and talk to these people. I really want to study insect fossils, if you can believe it. I'm pursuing an entomology minor and i want to marry that to geology. Idk who studies paleoentomology in the US.

>>2323183
>Idk who studies paleoentomology in the US.
I don't either.
I have a decent personal collection of insects from taking my kids to Florissant and the Green River shales on Douglas Pass, CO. I'm not an expert by any means though. I suppose amber is where it's really at? I know a dude that has published a few works on insects and fungi in amber but he just dabbles on the side. He's a retired construction contractor iirc. Similar to myself, his forays into academia are more a result of his hobbies than his profession.

>>2323184
Yes, amber is what im really fascinated by. But I'd really rather try and make progress in studying what happened in the 50 million year or so gap in the early fossil record of insects in the late Devonian and Mississippian- there are literally zero fossils described from this period yet it was during this time that wings were evolving. Could be impossible to answer but it took decades until we started filling in the carboniferous tetrapod gap, so I'm hopeful.

>>2323164
this is also an autistic little joke.
the truly observant may notice he put the head on the wrong end...

>>2323189
I honestly think Cope was on the spectrum. Explains a lot of his behavior

>>2323187
there are legitimate gaps in the terrestrial record, but if those strata exist somewhere you could likely fill in some gaps.

We had a similar problem with late Triassic and early Jurassic dinosaurs in the US. Tons of strata in that range, but they were all massive dune formations with no fossils. Just these huge deserts with nothing living in them. In the last couple decades people have started finding rare oasis areas that preserved abundant fossils though. Sometimes all you need is to believe and then put in the time searching. At least you know exactly where to look. A geo map will tell you every single spot those sediments are exposed.

filing in that particular gap would make you very famous. It's the holy grail of insect evolution, as I'm sure you know.

>>2323192
I want to make a splash. But seriously, which Facebook pages or forums do paleontology people hang out to discuss stuff? Correspondence via blog comments and the DML isn't convenient for me.

>>2323191
him and Marsh both. Probably most scientists I suppose. The shear amount of reading and retaining filters out the normies. The weird part to me is how broad their interests were back then. Both were great naturalists in numerous disciplines at very young ages.

>>2323194
>which Facebook pages or forums do paleontology people hang out to discuss stuff?
I joined all the big ones. I see other paleontologists on most of them. Holtz and Kirkland in particular are quite active on fb. As are a number of their students. I'm pretty sure they and others lurk daily.

>>2323196
I'll snoop around then. I have to practice my social skills. I'm kind of still riding on residual excitement about vertebrates but i think invert paleo is more my thing, for the most part.

>>2323195
That's because the science was really in its infancy still, for the most part.

>>2323197
I'll see you there. Social skills are what most scientists are lacking, you'll do fine. If you can put up with me you won't have any problem with actual professors that like to teach.

I can't stress enough how much anatomy goes into vertebrates. You can spend years studying just to get to a basic understanding. It's ridiculous. Then once you get there you find others aren't using the same terms....

Inverts have the added bonus of not taking up much space. Also being legal to collect without a permit. Most paleontologists don't have personal collections but when they do it's almost always inverts and plants.

>>2322848
>This particular discussion was about the maximum size potential of individuals and whether or not they could survive in today's atmosphere

Actually people were talking about engineering a Raptor chicken or some shit and some people said it would have to be mini because of the low O2. Then you guys started arguing about which time-frame is the YYYYYUUUGGGESSST

Ergo, you're both autistic and i get to use the word ergo

>>2323200
Yeah, I'm actually sitting on several buckets of unsorted Devonian material i collected as a kid in Ontario. I want to mount a trip to a Devonian quarry in my state (Michigan) known to harbor vertebrates (placoderms and other fishes). Michigan has an alright fossil record but we have an infamous 300 million year gap from the Pennsylvanian to the Quaternary, interrupted by a now buried Jurassic unit.

>>2323203
>people
Jack Horner on TV

>>2323045

No, m8, I think you're the one who's confused here

>>2322581
Barosaurus, there is a specimen that had a neck longer than Giraffititan was tall

>>2323390
lol do reddit spergs actually get pissed about feathered dinosaurs?

>>2323364
Barosaurus is from the Late Jurassic m8.

>>2323511
beginning of the end or end of the middle

>>2323511
>100 foot long dinosaurs evolved instantly from nowhere

>>2323399
Yes, it's fucking hilarious
The reddit infested boards on 4chan also get super triggered over feathered dinosaurs

>>2323511
>missing the point

>>2323655
>I ask for a large sauropod not from the Late Jurassic- Mid Cretaceous
>Get a Sauropod from the Late Jurassic.

>>2323700
>>I ask for a large sauropod not from the Late Jurassic- Mid Cretaceous
your mistake was including the "to Mid Cretaceous" part.

dinosaurs were at their largest in the mid-late Jurassic.
full stop.

The gigantic sauropod faunas of Jurassic Laurasia were extinct before the Cretaceous started. So while your age range included the time when dinosaurs were largest it also included times when they weren't. Like alleging that the fastest cars ever made exist in the set of all cars ever made, so all cars ever made are the fastest.

technically correct but specifically wrong due to being too broad.

>>2323700
also Barosaurus and most other gigantic sauropods are known from the lowest levels of the Morrison Formation, meaning they evolved to their size in the mid-Jurassic. The fact that they continued to exist through the late Jurassic doesn't change that.

>>2323714
Dinosaurs may have averaged their largest mid-late jurassic but INDIVIDUAL SPECIES reached peak size late Jurassic- Mid Cretaceous. Fuck this, I'm not getting into it again. Also I think youre understimating how fast animals can evolve to size.

>>2323721
>INDIVIDUAL SPECIES reached peak size late Jurassic- Mid Cretaceous.
depends on your view of Cope's giant.
averages are more informative than individuals though.

>I think youre understimating how fast animals can evolve to size.
possible. The Triassic-Jurassic was a remarkably stable climate though.
It would be really weird if animals just suddenly evolved huge in a million years and then didn't change for the next 10,000,000.

I still think you should read John Foster's work on the subject instead of making silly arguments. You've quoted his hypotheses in the past without knowing it. You'd benefit by actually reading the guy. He's right up your alley.

>>2323595
i remember i used to lurk on the toy dinosaur forum (big forum, still around) and there was this one dude who would just smugly get triggered each time feathered dinosaurs would come up. it seemed like he was a baby boomer age guy too, lol

>>2323714
what about amphicoelias? it's hard to tell exactly how big extinct animals got. the best you can do is demonstrate that on average, at one given time there were more large taxa coexisting. During the Late Jurassic certainly you have Tendaguru, Morrison, and Iberian (and Chinese too I think, although there seems to be more diversity in the Oxfordian) faunas with several huge sauropod species. I'm not sure that kind of rich sauropod fauna existed later into the Cretaceous, certainly not anywhere outside of South America after the Cenomanian.

>>2324068
I will say though (me continuing from my own post) that I just fucked up because I realize India probably had several Late Cretaceous titanosaurs. There don't seem to be any continental African rocks that contain dinosaurs after the Cenomanian, iirc. Asia also had large titanosaurs, but Europe, Madagascar, and North America all had lower numbers of smaller titanosaur species, if i recall correctly.

>>2324068
>what about amphicoelias?
I didn't want to bring it up for the same reason I didn't want to engage in a 5-day debate over which was the largest sauropod and why.

I did mention it obliquely once and pointed out twice that the largest individual species existed at the same time of the largest average.

I'm not super interested in arguing it though. I'm just repeating Foster's findings. This isn't my area of study or interest.
> the best you can do is demonstrate that on average, at one given time there were more large taxa coexisting.
exactly.

In regards to the sauropod debate though, it's worth noting that something of a turnover occurred at the Jurassic - Cretaceous transition, in that the Diplodocidae (sensu stricto) and the Chinese mamenchisaurid or omeisaurid group appear to have gone extinct. The remaining diplodocoids appear to have become smaller and more specialized, while the other half of the sauropod tree, leading up to titanosaurs, indeed keep cranking out huge members (like Sauroposeidon, which apparently sits between the brachiosaurids and titanosaurs phylogenetically)

>>2324068
>the best you can do is demonstrate that on average, at one given time there were more large taxa coexisting
or more large taxa as a function of diversity distribution.
or more large individuals as a function of biomass.
or examine trophic levels as sorted by size.
or examine nutrient flow as a limit on size in trophic levels.
or examine predation, scavenging, and detrivory as functions of size domination at trophic levels.
or compare size and its limits to trophic population and diversity over a number of faunas.

or any of a myriad of similar boring shit all of which Foster does ad nauseum for over a hundred pages in his book.

>>2324082
how is that boring? its kewl

Also what's the title of this Foster piece yall are talking about?

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>>2324089
I'm an anatomist, not an ecologist. I'm interested in the ecology of individuals but beyond that I lose interest fast.

>>2324090
https://www.amazon.com/Jurassic-West-Dinosaurs-Morrison-Formation/dp/0253348706

>>2324103
thanks for the link.
regarding ecology - it's what determines anatomy. Even if you discount it, the evolutionary heritage reflected by animal anatomy is the result of the ecosystems inhabited by an organism's ancestors. Anatomy is boring if it doesn't tell us what an organism was doing with it.

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This is a non avian dinosaur op

>>2324122
>regarding ecology - it's what determines anatomy
it's the other way around. Anatomy determines ecology.

For example, if an animal's habitat is suddenly flooded all the time it can't just be like, "I better evolve webbed feet so I can swim better!" In real life the adaptation evolves before the animal moves into a new niche, and then the environment decides which niches remain and which dry up.

So ecology and environment can only choose from the options anatomy produces. Anatomy comes first, ecology is the result.

not that it matters, but /an/ is rife with this post-hoc-fallacy method of understanding evolution. The environment doesn't shape the organism. Random chance shapes the organism and the environment decides what survives.

>>2324144

That is effectively environtment shaping an organism. Random changes are a foorce that would happen regardless of anything else, it's the environment that does anything that could be called "shaping".

That's like saying the water determines the shape of a river, not the terrain. The water is conforming to the shape determined by the obstacles in it's path.

>>2324154
>That is effectively environtment shaping an organism.
except if that were the case all organisms in a single environment would have the same optimal shape.

>>2324154
it would also mean if you keep throwing fish out of water they'd eventually grow lungs. This backwards view of evolution was destroyed by Darwin over a century ago.

>>2324159

I'm largely arguing semantics here m8. The environment is the one doing the steering, mutations are the gas.

>>2324158

How so? That's quite a leap.

>>2324161
>The environment is the one doing the steering, mutations are the gas.
in reality mutations are both the car and the driver. Environment is the road.
>How so? That's quite a leap
environments don't make conscious choices so if they actually shaped organisms they can't distinguish one from the other. All organisms would be shaped the same.

>>2324161
>The environment is the one doing the steering, mutations are the gas.
i like this analogy
>except if that were the case all organisms in a single environment would have the same optimal shape.
that's dumb. Think of it this way:
you put a rat (or some generalized condylarth, if you want to argue that rodent dentition limits them adaptively), a finch-like bird, and a lizard from the mainland on a new island without very many faunal elements. The new environment (let's say it's wetter than the mainland) will lead to an adaptive radiation from the original colonists - the rat might spawn large bulky herbivores, or semiaquatic beaver-like creatures. The bird (like the Galapagos finches) will also evolve into a new form, or multiple new forms if large enough barriers allow allopatric speciation to happen. You get the picture. If you want to be pedantic, then yes, anatomy (the anatomy of the last common ancestor of all life!) determines how organisms appear. But as organisms spread around, the forces of natural selection - the environment around them - shape their adaptations to increase their fitness in a new situation.

>>2324170
the reason this understanding of evolution fails you is because it idealizes the successes while ignoring the failure.

it also places the effect before the cause.

you're welcome to it, it's a common failure among the uneducated. I would go back and try to understand the order in which events occur if I were you though.

>>2324166
>>2324170
It's common sense, I'll add, that in one environment, organisms need not all look and act exactly alike. Not even closely related taxa with generally similar life strategies (eating the same food, for example) - natural selection devises other ways to avoid competition, like feeding at different times, for example, or feeding at a different height.

>>2324166

That is an absurdly simplistic view of how an environment affects an organism. The forces acting on an individual organism (or species or however you want to look at it) that decide if it survives or not are not magic RPG classifications that say "this is a forest, you will all now become forest creatures or perish!" They're things like avaialble resources, living space, threats etc. that different organisms will experience and make use of differently depending on what's available/around. Your view is absurdly reductivist to assume that every organism will experience an environment in the same way; even if everything were even across the board, variations would be created simply by the existance of other organisms who will use up the resources etc. If all those organisms eat a type of food, another organism will be forced to find another source of food, and how well they are adapted to eating that food will determine their survival etc.

>>2324173
>It's common sense
almost the entirety of science is based on destroying "common sense."

In reality your understanding is exactly backwards.
>natural selection devises
kek

>>2324175
>That is an absurdly simplistic view of how an environment affects an organism
environments don't affect organisms except to kill them either before or after reproduction.

full stop.
that is the only selective pressure an environment can make.

>>2324171
Where do/did you go to college? Would you call, say, a nuclear physicist with a naive understanding of Darwin uneducated?
Anyways, it's not really important whether evolutionary heritage ('baggage') or the environment drives evolution - both do at different times. But the widespread phenomenon of convergent evolution (not parallelism - I'm taking convergence between relatively high taxonomic levels) implies that anatomy is quite pliable, that organisms with radically different "luggage" (their evolutionary history and the resulting morphological products of it) can end up doing the same thing albeit with non-homologous structures. Think hawks and dragonflies. Everything about these aerial hunters is convergence, yet mostly works the same. The wings, raptorial limbs, keen eyes (probably), etc. are all similar in function but were not present in the common ancestor.

>>2324178

While that's not strictly true, it's mostly true and close enough that I'll agree with you. That does not, however, disagree with anything I've said.

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>>2324126
This is real and you can't do anything about it.

>>2324179
>both do at different times.
who sculpts, the sculptor or the vandal that smashes sculptures?

>>2324181
it's true in a strict, myopic, non-deep-time sense. But *why* does it kill organisms? That's because they are in relative terms less fit. Natural selection doesn't work to keep organisms the same morphologically unless staying the same is good for the organisms. This is why we have living fossils like nautiluses - their niche has 'required' little modification compared to other taxa.

>>2324183
I meant at the same time, just in different ways. My bad.

>>2324185
which says nothing about the original question,
which comes first, the anatomy or the niche it fits in?

the answer is always the anatomy. The anatomy must exist before the niche is filled. The anatomy exists, waiting for the niche to appear. The anatomy shapes the ecology, not the other way round.

ecology can't produce new anatomy, it can only smash any existing anatomy that doesn't fit it.

>>2324191
I think there's some truth to your statement. I'm reminded of the evolution of the bird wing - feathers existed on the forearms of flightless dinosaur forebears of birds, and thus were used for other functions. But, then, what was the pressure for the transformation of wings into organs of flight? Surely, some external selective pressure must have caused it.

>>2324192
>I think there's some truth to your statement.
it's not my statement. It's the standard refutation of Lamarckism.
>some external selective pressure must have caused it.
selective pressures cannot cause change. They can only kill or not kill organisms that have already changed.

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>>2324182
This is real too.

>>2324185

It's not, though. It can determine how many offspring an organism has, or how many times it reproduces.

>>2324191
Both.
It depends on the causal connection.
Like feathers, it evolved and gave the animal a advantage against others.
Sometimes a niche is there and through random mutation a species is better suited for it and evolves in this direction.

>>2324207
>through random mutation a species is better suited for it and evolves in this direction
exactly. this is an example of anatomy opening up new ecological possibilities.

the anatomy must exist before it can fit the niche though. Yes, the niche may exist first but it isn't filled by an organism until AFTER the anatomy evolves to fill it. The anatomy evolves before the animal fills the niche. And changing anatomy often opens up new niches.

>>2324204
it's very pretty. I'm starting to get turned off by reconstructions of dinosaurs which involve a lot of green on them, it's a real lizard-like color. More on the red spectrum (black, brown, red, white) - like birds or mammals usually are. Lizard-like color schemes look bad on endothermic animals..

>>2324209
Yeah. Now that you put it that way, I realize I was wrong. I haven't studied evolutionary theory much since gradeschool. I need to do some brushing up on the nuances of evolution.

>>2324210
>endothermic animals
Like calling fish endothermic just because <1% of them are.

>>2324212
you're not wrong exactly. You're just thinking of how the environment participates in shaping the individuals of a lineage over time.

where people screw up is in extrapolating that to the individual level. Obviously the environment doesn't shape individuals. This doesn't matter until we start talking about cause and effect.

>>2324217

Huh? The environment absolutely shapes individuals, unless you mean strictly on a genetic level. It doesn't change their DNA, of course.

>>2324219
>The environment absolutely shapes individuals
how so?
>unless you mean strictly on a genetic level
that would be the only level relevant to evolution.

Now the question is, how many feathered dinosaur were there?
We know that some branches had feathers, while others dont or are unknown.

How possible is it that all dinosaurs have feathers?

>>2324210
i meant more what comes first.
It can be both, since evolution is more random and like "throwing things at the wall and see what sticks"

>>2324220

How many resources an individual gets etc. will obviously shape that individual, and, again, this includes things like how many offspring the organism can have, whoch can determine the survival of it's genes which is absolutely relevant to evolution.

>>2324222

Extremely unlikely, there are enougj specimens with significant featherless skin impressions

>>2324224
I get what you're saying. but even if a niche exists before an animal exploits it,

an animal can't enter a niche for which it hasn't first evolved the anatomy to exploit. The anatomy will always exist before the filling of the niche.

the anatomy comes first every time. Tossing your little sister in the pool won't make her grow gills.

>>2324227
again, that's not the environment shaping the individual or all individuals would be equally shaped.

it is a case of a beneficial anatomy or physiology existing first, and the environment rewarding it. (or more correctly punishing the lack of it).

>>2324213
fish live underwater. Kinda irrelevant to what's already base speculation.
But think about it. Modern animals of (roughly) the same size and niche as small ornithopods, or psittacosaurs, all kind of show a general trend to brown or black, with variation. Think deer, antelopes, or emus. Past artists showed dinosaurs with unrealistically subdued colors. Modern artists, perhaps less now than at a peak ~20 years ago, often give them excessively gaudy appearances. Which reminds me that we now apparently know the color patterns of some Mesozoic feathered animals - hoping some anons have juicy disagreements about this because the fights we've been having so far in this thread are aging.

>>2324228
I meant that there are more than just 2 branches with feathers. And i mean not full body feathers.

Regarding the skin impression, they are most patches. And if you would find a skin impression of a human, you might think we are hairless too.

>>2324229
What do you mean, what kickstarts the evolution? Than you are right, but like your example with the pook, the niche of the pool existed before.

>>2324231

That's not necessarily true.

I'm getting bored of this. I'm not sure if you're being intentionally obtuse or not but damn.

>>2324233
the psittacosaur you originally commented on is known from actual pigments in actual skin samples. So that is an accurate coloration to the best current knowledge.

/an/ always argues integument because they only relate to dinosaurs based on behavior and appearance, neither of which is really known.

science is boring. speculation you can really argue about.

>>2324235
>what kickstarts the evolution?
radiation usually.

>>2324222
>>2324228
The feather debate is long from over. What's clear is that the potential to grow feathers, in terms of structures homologous to modern avian ones, is only known within Coelurosauria. What's less clear is the homology of structures found in ornithischians to those found in theropods. Many workers think a sort of filamentous integument was present in basal ornithodirans, as we know the three orders (Pterosauria, Saurischia, and Ornithischia) possessed them in some form or another. But it need not be that way. We do know of course that dinosaurs retained the scaly skin befitting earlier reptiles, and the hadrosaur "mummy" fossils lead one to believe that larger dinosaurs did not have much or anything in the way of feather-like integument. Which makes sense, given that some large mammals like elephants or rhinoceroses do not have very much hair at all. One might object by pointing to hairier relatives (mammoths and mastodonts) but remember that the woolly mammoth was specialized for a cold climate that existed nowhere in the Mesozoic, and that extinct proboscideans from warmer climes probably were much more sparsely covered by hair, as modern elephants are.

>>2324236
>I'm not sure if you're being intentionally obtuse or not but damn.
I make no such mistake about you. I know for a fact you're not pretending ignorance and limited capacity.

>>2324237
Speculation and science are intertwined in palaeontology. There's a lot of subjectivity in interpretation - if you've read about the Ediacaran fauna (really should be 'fauna' in scare quotes!), you'll quickly realize that.

>>2324241
>Speculation and science are intertwined in palaeontology.
Several solid paleontologists have made the argument that speculation isn't actually part of the paleontology.

>>2324238
No i meant with "is anatomy or niche first".
If this is based on kickstarting the evolution, than yes anatomy will always be first.
Otherwise, sometimes the niche and other time the anatomy will be first.

>radiation usually
less usuall, because the DNA transcription and repair in the nukleus is rather shitty. And through recombination while impregnating the egg.

>>2324239
I just wonder how far spread the ability and the actuall growing of feathers is.

>>2324246
my mistake was using "niche" in a gestalten sense to indicate opportunity plus exploitation while dissecting evolution into its constituent parts.

if we take niche apart and view it only as the opportunity, then yes niche will generally occur first. Land existed long before animals evolved to live on it.

what I meant was that animals evolved the organs to live on land before they did in fact live on land. Or whatever. The anatomy has to exist before a niche can be exploited.

>>2324251
Ok, i got you wrong there.
Yes you are right.

>>2324244
who, specifically? just because speculation isn't written explicitly into papers in journals doesn't mean it isn't *there*, in some form or another. But I will say that speculation being replaced by solid answers has happened at an amazing pace in paleontology. 50 years ago, nobody really had a clue what happened at the end of the Cretaceous. The best explanation trotted out was that the rising sea levels or (in older, American books) the Laramide orogeny caused a gradual extinction of dinosaurs and other casualties. No talk of Chicxulub or the Deccan Traps in the 50s was going on. I guess what i'm trying to say is that one day many mysterious problems in the field could be solved - because that happened over and over again for 200 years.

>>2324253
>who, specifically?
Carpenter took the lead.

>>2324250
Well, we know a great deal, but there are still answers. What's certain is that the acquisition of the specialized feather we see in birds was gradual - you start with downy feathers in primitive coelurosaurs while advanced ones (dromaeosaurs) possess the full gamut of feathers seen on modern birds. The structures seen in a few ornithischians are much simpler and their homology to the structures in coelurosaurs is unknown.

>>2324252
>i got you wrong there.
I wasn't clear, my fault not yours.

>>2324254
Naish and the British pterosaur aficionados might have a bone to pick with that, lol (maybe not though). It's not really harmful for paleontologists to announce their unsubstantiated ideas about form and function in popular literature anyways - much of it is informed by science and has actually been confirmed by later discoveries. Remember that artists in the 1970s (!) started depicting coelurosaurs with feathers and routinely did so after Greg Paul became popular. All of this before Liaoning.

>>2324259
What scientists have proposed and Carpenter has articulated is a simple rating system for the strength of speculation based on how well the evidence supports it.

this isn't a new idea, Carpenter borrowed it from an older paleontologist, and it exists in ratings systems for inferences from phylogenetic bracketing.

This ratings system is something scientists are trained to do automatically, we read a paper and immediately judge the strength of the evidence, how well it supports the hypotheses, and how well the author ruled out alternative hypotheses by controlling variables.

/an/ and the public in general isn't equipped to make these sorts of judgments so they tend to give rampant speculation the same weight as confirmed fact, or if they discriminate it's based on the perceived authority of the source rather than the strength of the argument. Public understanding of science would be greatly improved if we implemented a ratings system to inform people about how strong or weak an inference is.

though to be fair the sorts of people that care about that kind of thing tend to become scientists and don't need it explained to them. Meanwhile the public comes to think of all science as lies and supposition because the only science they're interested in just so happens to be exactly that. Even though scientists will tell you that stuff isn't science at all.

>>2324259
>artists in the 1970s (!) started depicting coelurosaurs with feathers
this was a supposition resting in fact.
Archaeopteryx was discovered in 1861 and confirmed to be a dinosaur very shortly after.
Paul's understanding of the semi-lunate carpal was sufficient evidence that birds were coelurosaurs, in case the skeleton of Archaeopteryx left any doubt. His decision to illustrate them as active endotherms with feathers would fall between a level 4 and level 5 inference-
significant anatomical and phyletic evidence supports the inference but no direct evidence exists.

>>2324316
>significant anatomical and phyletic evidence supports the inference but no direct evidence exists.
This is the same level of inference that puts feathers on Velociraptor or OP's Utahraptor.

in that there is only indirect anatomical and phyletic evidence these animals were feathered. We still haven't found Velociraptor or Utahraptor feathers and it remains possible- though unlikely- that they lacked them.

>>2324312
I'm curious about the Carpenter system. What's the title of the work where he says this? Anyways, I don't necessarily disagree with you. But saying that speculation about, say, dinosaurs is lying is a bit excessive. Foolish, yes, but the intent is not deceptive. I think much of the reason for the public's distorted perception of paleontology is the inaccuracy of the news media. News outlets often hype studies as the "final word" in some controversy whether or not that's true. Recently a paper came out challenging the fresh interpretation of Tullimonstrum as a vertebrate. These back and forth battles over systematics, I think, are hard to report on.

>>2324320
V. mongoliensis has been proven (pretty much) to have feathers. Quill knobs described on the ulna. Actually, in 1987 i think this was noticed on Avimimus. This discovery quickly made it into artistic reconstructions (the venerable John Sibbick painted it, for example)

>>2324339
>Quill knobs described on the ulna
this is strong anatomical evidence but not proof.

proof would be an articulated skeleton in lithographic limestone with feathers preserved.

>>2324337
give me a few minutes.

>>2324341
But we don't need proof. We know now, in this example, that other dromaeosaurids possess feathers, and that Ornithomimus, a larger taxon, also has them. But 20 years ago it was a more worthwhile debate.

>>2324347
>20 years ago it was a more worthwhile debate.
The bracketing moved from a level 2 inference to a level 1. Back then one descendent taxon was known to have feathers.

now one descendent taxon, several ancestral taxa, and numerous sister taxa are known to have feathers.

this is a much stronger inference than it used to be, but it's still just an inference. It could still be wrong. It's not likely to be wrong, but it could be.

>>2324337
I was looking to see if I have it on PDF. Apparently not.
>evidence for predator-prey relationships examples for allosaurus and stegosaurus
in the same book I copied pages from above.

I agree regarding the popular media. Problem is the public is only interested in the revolutionary discoveries, and those often prove to be wrong. The stuff that's well supported by fact is rarely revolutionary or interesting to the public.

>>2324351
Some exciting revolutions in science are, eventually, found to be true. Keyword here is eventually, as they must hold up to further investigation. A pertinent example is the theropod-bird connection. It took a while to gain traction. Hell, there's still Feduccia standing his ground on the issue. I also believe the public has a picture of lone men (Darwin, Einstein, etc) going "Eureka!" and immediately convincing everyone. We have to dispel that and replace it with the truth about science, as primarily a group effort!

>>2324361
>It took a while to gain traction
it was accepted without doubt in the 1800's. But I digress.

>replace it with the truth about science, as primarily a group effort!
agreed. We also need it understood as a process rather than an accomplishment. It's never finished. Never proven. Hopefully it gets better over time, though as your bird example proves it can easily go backwards.

>>2324363
Blame Heilmann. I guess it's an example of a cautionary tale, because he published one (1!) book in the popular press instead of in a scientific journal. The man was an artist (a damned good one, too) but apparently all this was enough to convince contemporary scientists. At least that's my understanding of the story. I recall that Heilmann identified the apparent lack of a furcula as the smoking gun to refute the theropod-bird relationship, and that in the 1930s _Segisaurus_ was discovered to possess one - but this was ignored. I'd like to do some more reading on this because this reversal in thinking about dinosaurs seems a little anomalous in science, to me, and I like scientific biography - people's personalities affect their jobs even in science.

http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Essays/dinohist.html here's an article by Michael Benton which I'm reading. Good summary.
Off topic but I'm trying to subscribe to the DML and it's giving me an error message. fuck me.

>>2324370
a couple other factors were at work as well.

there was a lack of anatomical expertise, the guys that came later were no Cuvier or even Owen. Comparative anatomy was circling the drain during Victorian times.

also the discovery of the American dinosaurs made it look very much like they weren't all related. We suddenly had some dinosaurs that weren't bipedal. Some had predentaries. Some lacked antorbital fenestrae. All these things pointed to them being unrelated to each other. It was an easy progression to Feduccia's view that these were just a bunch of unrelated archosaurs, and birds were just another arrow in the quiver.

>>2324370
>>2324376
there was also the confusion about how bird hips evolved from lizard-hipped dinosaurs but not bird-hipped ones. This genuinely caused some consternation back in the day.

now we understand that while it's counterintuitive it must have happened. Nobody gives it a lot of thought anymore.

>>2324376
Yes, those are also very good points. I'll also add that some point to the Depression and WW2 having a big impact on research regarding dinosaurs, as if they hadn't turned the Earth upside-down enough already. This is interesting to me because dinosaurology seems to have picked up after the First World War without skipping a beat. Perhaps it was attrition - in the 30s Nopsca (who I believe was one of the more creative early 20th century dinosaur guys) was dead, and the economy prevented new blood from taking over. And politically the situation in the Old World meant a focus on American fossils (I could be wrong about this, but certainly the expeditions slowed down or were compromised by the middle 30s after Japan encroached, and before that by the chaotic situation in China generally)

>>2324377
I recall reading somewhere that Hypsilophodon specifically was implicated as related to birds. Might have been in an old book about dinosaurs from decades ago. I'm certain that Huxley would not have supported a 'birds are ornithischians' hypothesis, full stop.

>>2324378
yeah, the Baron was easily the most interesting personality in paleontology, perhaps ever. His work was less impressive than his personal life though. Adequate, but not particularly inspired.

I think you've nailed it regarding the interbellum. After WWII we saw a grand renewal and some competition between the Yanks and the Communists, but even those revivals were shared slowly. German science has never recovered its former glory.

>>2324382
This is another case where Archaeopteryx initially shed light but was in time forgotten.

It was clearly both a bird and a saurischian. Though not as obviously saurischian as say, theropods and sauropods which many thought to be saurischians by convergence rather than synapomorphy.

>>2324387
>many thought to be saurischians by convergence rather than synapomorphy.
a view that lives on today.
a number of modern paleontologists consider the saurischian/ornithischia split to be grades rather than clades.

>>2324389
There was Bakker's Phytodinosauria, which persisted due to the uncertainty regarding the segnosaurs. The uncertainty regarding the split between Saur and Orn regards the fact that the saurischian pelvis is the basal condition - the common ancestor of the two orders had it and the ornithischian condition is the derived one. But, the monophyly of Saurischia (defined as the most recent common ancestor of say, Tyrannosaurus and Diplodocus) is pretty solidly demonstrated, I think.

>>2324392
Where the modern dissent exists is mostly with sauropodologists. Some such as VanHeerden point out that the prosauropods were already far too derived to be ancestors of the sauropods, and we've got a huge ghost lineage from Herrerasaurus to the first sauropods. There is tentative agreement that that split must have occurred at some point, the fossils are just missing. Prosauropods are perhaps close to the ancestral sauropod, but not exactly it. As I recall part of the problem is that prosauropods are missing most of the carpus that's still present in basal sauropods. Dollo's Law persists.

it's not a common topic among dinosaur paleontologists though. Relatively few study prosauropods and there's not much else in that missing lineage to study.

>>2324384
German palaeontology has never really *stopped* though. And WW1, in keeping with what I referred to earlier, seems to have done little to hinder it, with von Huene dominating interwar paleontology on a lot of fronts, although the Tendaguru expeditions (despite Lettow-Vorbeck's valiant efforts!) stopped and the British picked up where the Germans had left off. WW2 really fucked everything up though. We all know what happened to Stromer's Egyptian discoveries, and other specimens in both Allied & Axis hands were destroyed. I really think, actually, that the postwar era was more of a period of glory for the Soviet bloc than for Americans. It was during the 50s that CC Young made a lot of big discoveries, and throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s the Mongolian expeditions were in full swing while American paleontologists doddered along doing very little.

>>2324396
well those Polish footprints imply that the ghost lineage for Dinosauria in general is pretty solid, so it's par for the course. As a side note, it infuriates me that workers want to discourage the term "prosauropod". Not only is there the lingering possibility of monophyly for that taxon name, but saying "non-sauropod sauropodomorph" is absolutely barmy. We don't call reptiles "non-avian sauropsids", and "non-avian dinosaurs", while in use, is too much of a mouthful to warrant repeated use in a publication. This is my opinion, of course.

>>2324401
>the postwar era was more of a period of glory for the Soviet bloc than for Americans.
absolutely. The Soviets led and the Americans followed. This doesn't get as much attention as perhaps it deserves. I think in part because of the difficulties both sides had in sharing discoveries. It was often easier to replicate the other side's work than to obtain, translate, and publish it.

I suppose all are thankful Stromer took the time to illustrate his finds so carefully. If only Cope and Marsh had done the same we'd have far fewer mysteries on our hands.

>>2324404
footprints are equivocal but perhaps the best we'll find.

oddly enough it's usually those that study prosauropods that argue most for polyphyly. Time will tell, but I suspect they're just a sister clade of sauropods somewhere very close to the split. Perhaps if the Baron were still alive he could clear it up for us.

>>2324407
there needs to be a movie about Nopsca. He's such an amazing figure.
>>2324405
I was just reading an article about the discovery (10 years ago now) of hitherto unknown photos by Stromer of his Spinosaurus https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060405175650.htm
Pictures are important. As it turns out Stromer apparently did a good job illustrating his bones, and we have to thank him because for years it's all we had to go on for Spino. Cope and Marsh certainly would have benefitted from photography if it was as easy in 1880 as it was today, although if their discoveries were replicated now at the same pace as they were in the Gilded Age, I'd expect them to skimp on the snapshots.

>>2324409
And an addendum: not only are pictures of individual specimens important, but so are reconstructions of the whole organism, whether a skeletal diagram or a painting depicting it in life. You may bitch about how speculative it is, but a conservative reconstruction goes a long way in communicating the appearance of an extinct animal. There are loads of rather unique taxa whose illustrative portfolios are slim or non-existent, which seems pathetic to me in this age of DeviantArt and the highest awareness of paleo science of all time, frankly.

>>2324409
I recall seeing Stromer's photos. His drawings were excellent as well.

Cope's illustration of Amphicoelias fragillimus was good enough, but the jackass used a crocodile femur for scale. Not exactly useful in retrospect. He was a weirdo though. Both of them did some pretty asinine things in their hurry.

>>2324416
>You may bitch about how speculative it is,
no, I don't look at things like color and integument in life reconstructions. I see it as the best possible guess based in real and reasoned comparative anatomy. And that's not just speculation, it conveys actual, useful information.

Where I might bitch is in a couple cases in Asia where people have identified tyrannosaurids based on the presence of a single PM tooth having a D-shaped basal cross section despite no tyrannosaurids known from that area or stratum and ignoring the fact that tyrannosaurids aren't the only theropods with PM teeth having a D-shaped basal cross section....

when that happens 2 or 3 times I might bitch. A restoration based on a single, equivocal tooth find is a bit much in my mind.

>>2324419
Like I said earlier in the thread, Cope probably had autism. Imagine the tweetstorms the two would have had if they lived today.

>>2324423
That's not what I'm talking about necessarily. People should know by now that dinosaur teeth are not the holy grails of diagnostic features that mammal teeth are.

>>2324425
>Imagine the tweetstorms the two would have had if they lived today.
would be epic!
didn't they take out full page ads in local newspapers trashing each other?
>>2324427
>People should know by now that dinosaur teeth are not the holy grails of diagnostic features that mammal teeth are.
if we admit that we overturn half of the Asian and European theropodology of the last 30 years.

which may have to happen anyways. Time will also answer that question.

>>2324432
Cope and Marsh should also get made into a movie. Our little profession needs to get more representation om the silver screen than just guys who get eaten at a theme park. Regardless, tooth taxa are insanely problematic and we should learn from the Bone Wars - remember the examples of Troodon and Trachodon, among others. Great names like Aublysodon and Deinodon were sunk because of the undiagnostic nature of dino teeth.

>>2324437
>Our little profession
If I have any profession it's shitposting on 4chan. That's the only thing I do for anything close to 40 hours a week.

I suppose they'll make movies about that eventually though.

>>2324448
I'm positive that a lot of paleontology has been dramatized for documentaries already. But a big-budget picture about Cope & Marsh specifically (or at least incorporating them) would be kind of cool. Probably focusing more on Cope because he was a more interesting figure, honestly.

>>2324454
to me the more interesting stories come from the diggers. I love how Riggs set timbers and tunneled into the hillside to mine his Apatosaurus like he was going after gold or something.

Or Sternberg's story of how he almost slid to his death while hunting high above a cliff on the Judith River-
I had a similar experience in Rattlesnake Canyon outside Fruita, I know exactly how easy it is to just look at the ground and walk until you find yourself in a place where you have to grow wings or die.

or the stories of the discovery of the Bone Cabin, people wandering into the Sioux camps and asking them where to find "Ghost Horses." Then to be led to a hill paved in dinosaur bones, and find a long abandoned cabin literally made of the stacked limb bones of giants.

I don't know that it would make great film, but I find it more romantic than the stuff the real paleontologists did in their dusty museums with daddy's fortune.

>>2324460
You're probably right. Maybe a movie about Teilhard de Chardin or Roy Chapman Andrews might be a good compromise of action during expeditions and tedious biographical stuff.

To the real paleontologist guy who dumped the Ken Carpenter paper: I'm having trouble joining the Dinosaur Mailing List. When I try to subscribe I get an error message in my inbox. In the meantime though are there any forums or facebook groups or something else that lots of working paleo workers frequent? I really want to get into the discussion.

>>2324467
I had to google one of those two...
>>2324471
Sorry, I'm not much help there. I subscribe to a couple pay journals online and academia.edu. Other than that I don't pay much attention.

I see a lot going on on the Paleontology group on Facebook. It varies though.

>>2324474
Teilhard is cool man. Wrong but cool.

Just got back from a dig, thinking about taking some paleontology units along with seds and other day job units, maybe do some taphonomy on a research or hobby basis later on

>>2324471
There did used to be a forum of just dinosaur paleontologists that was public and online. I don't know if it's still up and running. I can't remember the name so I'd have to do some googling to find it. Give me a minute.

>>2324477
Thanks. I just want to be able to subscribe to the damn DML though. I'm pissed cuz i was eons ago but i moved on and forgot about it.

You wanna see a reptilian? They evolved from dinosaur but in a different dimension, now they're the overlords who control our society.

>>2324476
>>2324481
is this spam?

>>2324480
yeah, nevermind.
the forum I remembered was in fact DML.
I'm not sure how to subscribe, I never subscribed to it myself. It does appear to still be active though.

>>2324475
I'm going to read more about him tomorrow. Thanks for the tip.
>>2324476
taphonomy is nice for a geo-oriented approach. Actual systematic paleontology is usually a PhD track with way more biology and way less money than most geologists care for.

>>2324484
Lol, if there was a real forum I'd have known about it, lol. I'll probably just email someone on there regarding my issues. Now that I think about it, I really don't want messages I don't care about clogging my inbox.
>>2324485
Yup, he's a colorful figure. Him and Andrews both participated in at least 1 Mongolian expedition actually; I recall perusing a biography of Chardin in my university library, actually. Extremely fascinating. I was surprised by the number of competent Chinese scientists at the time (1920s) too - can't remember exactly but it was more than zero!
>>2324476
Where did you dig at? What is your academic background? as >>2324485 said, if you want to be serious about palaeontology, bio is important

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>>2324476
I find diagenesis interesting- I've seen dinosaur skulls smashed flat as a pancake without any of the bones broken. Interesting how pliable they become at some point.

Taphonomy in general is weird though. Pic related is a chunk of Stegosaurus bone I keep for teaching purposes. The purplish inner swirl is calcified, but the red and yellow outside it is silicified. The yellow part in particular is radioactive. So we've got several different mineralization zones within the same bone, presumably laid down at different times by different taphonomic processes.

I also have some unmineralized bone fragments in my teaching collection. Bone that is raw, unchanged since it was originally deposited. As is typical for raw dinosaur bone it was part of a permineralized bone that for some reason wasn't completely replaced by silica. I don't understand it, but anyone that looks at enough dinosaur bone has seen it. Apparently it's particularly common in the Hell Creek.

When I was much younger I took an unmineralized fragment of Allosaurus bone, ground it up and drank it as a tea. To the best of my knowledge I'm the only human alive to have tasted actual Allosaurus tissues.

>>2324491
how did it taste anon

>>2324496
just like it smells- like slightly moldy dirt. I wouldn't recommend it except for the novelty.

>>2324497
it's like those men who decided to cook and eat mammoth meat. They didn't like it either.

>>2324498
I thought of myself as a modern William Buckland.
He was working on classifying all the animals based on flavor.
Supposedly he ate the heart of King Louis XIV just to see what a king's heart tasted like.

>>2324502
Savage

>>2324491
Anon be honest. You did this just in hope to grow dinosaur features and to run around as a vigilante, allosaurusman.

>>2324498
Or the ones finding old wine/alcohol bottles on the sea ground and drinking it.

>>2321157
>its the evil ceos
>commie detected

>>2324485
The geos on this dig were mostly hobbyists, or retired from work and doing research. I can see myself keeping this up in a similar fashion, maintaining an interest and improving my knowledge but having a day job. It was pretty good for my working knowledge to get paleocurrent orientations in choppy, messy strata.

>>2324489
Cape Otway, Victoria, Australia. Geology major, some botany, geography.

>>2324491
That is really cool. I've got some unmineralised quaternary stuff, but that blows my mind. If I do taphonomy-ish honours I've got my supervisor picked out and will probably do something megafauna related, there's a really poorly researched site that I am committed to be involved with in the long term, there's all manner of fields I could do research in.

>>2320906
op its good that they are extinct due too nature running its course never try to fight nature because you will always lose. Just enjoy what we have today and cherish it.

>>2321130
TINY WHITE DIPLODOCUS

BIG BLACK BAROSAURUS

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>>2324572
>tfw no big black swole barosaurus to ravage you with his tornado tongue

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>>2324509

thus spoke the /pol/ack.

Stop posting your shite on other boards. You have your containment board for a reason.

> inb4 "not liking commies don't make me a nazi"

taking the time to post about it is what singles you out as a /pol/tard

pic very fucking related

>>2324680
There are no /pol/tards in paleontology.

>>2321129
Zero net positive? How about unlimited wealth and eternal fame?

>>2324498
a few years ago a paper looked into that dinner incident and concluded they actually ate turtle meat

>>2324950
how disappointing

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>>2320906
Probably a dumb question. But how the fuck did dromeosaurs use their hands? It looks to me like their "wing" feathers would get in the way.

>>2325339
How much proof is there thatDromaeosaurs had those gigantic wings anyways? Just seems like the'd get in the way desu.

>>2325339
>>2325462
We know they had them. See earlier discussion about quill knobs in _Velociraptor_. The smaller taxa (microraptorines) probably used their fore and hind limbs to assist in gliding. Larger genera like Deinonychus may have done a number of other things with the feathered forelimbs, such as enumerated in this paper by Fowler et al. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0028964
which proposes that the animals used their feet to restrain prey and their arms to balance themselves on top of prey by flapping - implications for the origin of modern avian flight stroke. The feathers on the wings may have also been important for incubation when the animals sat on their nests; the shape of maniraptoran eggs suggests chicken-like incubation behavior, and fossil oviraptor preserved in a posture consistent with this also lends support to that idea.

>>2325497
I think its undisputed that they had feathers, but what evidence is there that large Dromaeosaurs (particularly Utahraptor, Achillobator, or Dakotaraptor) had gigantic wing like structures?

>>2325339
Wing feathers are tougher than a lot of paleontologists give them credit for. Modern birds are known to beat each other with their wings. Also, they weren't using them to fly (big ones at least), so they didn't have to worry as much about damaging them.

My own bit of bullshit speculation is that maybe in some species that were more violent with their arms, their wing feathers would be small or quill-like for much of the year, but molt into a more elaborate set for mating season displays and/or brooding.

>>2325462
Zhenyuanlong, which is about the size of Velociraptor, was preserved with large wings.

>>2325589
Quill knobs were found on Dakotaraptor's ulna.

>>2325628
and what evidence that these quill knobs were gigantic 2 ft. long structures and not just smaller feathers? Is that implied in quill knobs? and what of the more basal dromaeosaurs like Utahraptor?

>>2325636
Reproductive functions imply that they would be quite substantial. Remember that even the ornithomimosaurs could grow pennaceous feathers.