>Feather supporters forced to consider the possibility

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probably sparse feathering

>>2402125
this isn't actually about feathers vs. scales.

it's about reforming Tyrannosauroidea because it's a wastebasket taxon.

We are not considering the possibility that T. rex wasn't feathered- we've known this for a decade.

We're considering the possibility that it isn't related to Yutyrannus and Dilong.

>>2402125
What would be the point of 'sparse' feathering? At least full and vulture serves a purpose like it would birds. Or if it did have sparse feathers, would it be like the hair on elephants?

>>2402149
At this point secondary sex characteristics seem like the only likely explanation.
Ornamental feathers or protofeathers, especially in males, could very well be very sparsely distributed. They might even only be found in males.

If we look at modern birds for example likely locations would be the top and sides of the head, a dorsal ridge or the tail, all high visibility areas displayed in courtship rituals.

>>2402187
Alright, that makes sense. Not all colors and shit need to have a 'use'.

Do we know much about sex characteristics in dinosaurs? Like would male triceratops have different or bigger horns. Male birds are usually prettier than female but as far as I'm aware we don't know that about even the small, birdy raptors. For some reason I imagine colorful plumages and whatnot to be more modern.

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>>2402214
>Do we know much about sex characteristics in dinosaurs?
Sadly no. Apart from obvious allometries in bones it's really hard to tell since for example different horns would probably be considered as a new species, especially if the animal is only partially preserved so you have not many other traits to compare it to. There probably are quite strong sexual dimorphisms between genders in certain groups of dinosaurs but the male and female are considered different species.

Also many of these secondary sexual traits are related to coloration, which isn't preserved.

>For some reason I imagine colorful plumages and whatnot to be more modern.
I can tell you the reason, it's because most portrayals of prehistoric animals have them with very basic colors (and behaviors). There is no reason to assume animals were less colorful or had less extreme examples of sexual traits back then. Same for behaviors.
What we can reconstruct is always a "practical" view of them, so they are usually portrayed with drab, camouflage colors, doing things that an animal has to do, eat, hunt, sleep and so on.
That however doesn't mean you could have things like males changing colors to something quite dramatic during mating season, or parental care, or playing, or really anything you can think of in modern animals that have a similar ecological niche.

>>2402227
>There probably are quite strong sexual dimorphisms between genders in certain groups of dinosaurs but the male and female are considered different species.
kek

I love it when you pull shit right out your ass.

There's a few reasons this doesn't happen:
1. that's not how species are divided
2. when encountering allometry we first look for ontogeny and then look for dimorphism. Only after that's ruled out would we consider speciation. This is literally the first thing we look for.
3. two extremely similar species don't usually overlap in niche and range, this produces competition which evolution avoids. So any time we find two very similar animals in the same time and place we'll first assume they're the same species.

>>2402230
>1. that's not how species are divided
Kek
>"new" slightly different metatarsal found, "new" species, completely ignoring intraspecific variability

>when encountering allometry we first look for ontogeny
Which only works if you have ontogeny, which you often don't

>two extremely similar species don't usually overlap in niche and range
Ah yes, niche exclusion principle.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0269-8463.2005.00965.x/full

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759543/

>>2402230
>two extremely similar species don't usually overlap in niche and range
Have you ever head of "cryptic species"? Even today, when we have live animals to look at behavioral differences are enough for speciation without any noticeable change in morphotype. And that is from complete animals we can examine very closely. All you have is bones.

>>2402241
>"new" slightly different metatarsal found, "new" species, completely ignoring intraspecific variability
this is the dunning kruger effect. Since you've never studied anatomy you assume it must be really simple and that paleontologists are very dumb.

>Which only works if you have ontogeny, which you often don't
how do you suppose we first identify it when we don't have it then? If you were right we'd never learn it.

>>2402249
>that is from complete animals we can examine very closely. All you have is bones.
you accidentally your whole argument.

all we have is bones. That's exactly why we assume similar sympatrics are conspecific.

>>2402230
Now I have a few questions.

>>2402255
>assume similar sympatrics are conspecific
Based on what amount of similar? Where is the line usually drawn? Probably at a certain amount of autapomorphies, right?

It could be very easy to falsely assign an autapomorphy to a feature only a male posesses for example. That would be especially problematic because differences coming from sexual dimorphism are so difficult to reconstruct.

Also as someone else already (rudely) pointed out, your argument
>two extremely similar species don't usually overlap in niche and range
does not hold up. The niche exclusion principle is only one of several models to explain species distribution, and neutral theory and ecological equivalence are, at least mathematically, just as adept at modeling ecosystems. And in reality and not only mathematics we find examples of niche overlap.

>>2402271
>Probably at a certain amount of autapomorphies, right?
no, quality matters rather than quantity.

if you've got traits that are subject to convergence or variation their quality is going to be low. What we're looking for is variations along a spectrum in a trait that's universally common but subject to change over time. Species are almost never erected on a single anatomical trait anyways.

This is compounded somewhat by the fact that we HAVE identified dimorphism in a number of non-avian dinosaurs, and the differences are generally extremely subtle. (size, robustness, presence or absence of the first caudal chevron).

Dimorphism isn't identified strictly by morphometrics in most cases, it also requires census data. If you have 2 similar "species," and they're near equal in population counts, it's very likely you're looking at dimorphism rather than speciation.

>And in reality and not only mathematics we find examples of niche overlap.
yes.
the reason I ignored this argument before is because it doesn't matter. Just like the argument here: >>2402249

this implies that we have named TOO FEW species, not too many. We take the conservative, parsimonious approach for a reason. If paleontologists err, it's on the side of not naming enough species because there may indeed have been overlap that we can't identify from bones alone.

>>2402283
I'm not into paleontology but what you write sounds a bit too optimistic and ideal to me. Species are often not described by following any sort of rigorous standard, just so some authors can stroke their own ego over all of "their" species.

For example
>Species are almost never erected on a single anatomical trait anyways.
Many are, during the species description rush from the 1800s to 1940 especially, but even today. Then to justify that they search for other uniquie traits and claim those are specific too. All for the sake of stroking your own ego. When you bother to do it properly you quickly find out that not only that single anatomical trait but also the other ones are often intraspecific variability. The problem is barely anyone goes back to look at the heaps of garbage some authors have produced (or still are producing, now with molecular data) becuase new stuff is always more exciting and brings in more money. Modern taxonomy can be a fucking mess. I can't imagine that being much different in paleontology.

And this is where I was getting my initial idea of males and females potentially being identified as different species from.

>>2402125
Proto-feathers are not feathers. Also, dinos don't need to have proto-feathers all over their bodies.

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>this just in
>chickens may not have had feathers after all!

>>2402298
This is true. Also, people with red hair and freckles are also a different subspecies of human.

>>2402144
Under what pretext? Both Dilong and Yutyrannus are known from fairly complete specimens. Yutyrannus could potentially fall just outside of Tyrannosauroidea, but Dilong has been recovered fairly consistently as a stem tyrannosaurid.

>Next thing OP starts ranting about is tyrannosauroids aren't actually theropods

>>2402149
>What would be the point of 'male' nipples?

>>2402298
it's cyclical, species are erected and then later workers synonymize them. There's just as much prestige in tearing down a species as there is in erecting one.

I'm speaking of species that last more than a decade or two. I don't know how it works in your branch of taxonomy but in paleontology we always begin with a review of the literature and end with a section synonymizing, abdicating, reclassifying, or vindicating previous assignments in the taxon. This is standard form, you don't publish until you've got something to say about the previous body of work.

regardless, I'm not aware of a single instance in dinosaur paleo where dimorphism was mistaken for speciation, and I firmly believe it has never fucking happened.

>>2402351
>Under what pretext?
the diagnoses for Allosauroidea and Tyrannosauroidea are almost identical.

Tyrannosauroidea=Allosauroidea

one or both are wastebasket taxa

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>>2402479
>this faggot again

>>2402483
Oh hey, Daniel

I noticed you lied about what Larson had to say about the Wyrex scales. Haven't you slunk off in shame yet?

What about pluto?

>>2402491
what about the Tertiary Period?
muh K-T extinction?
K-Pg just isn't as sexy

>>2402144
we have very few skin impressions of Trex, I still think there is a strong case for feathers in that many other Theropods are feathered. Basically i'm saying your know for decades comment is wrong.

>>2402504
>I still think there is a strong case for feathers in that many other Theropods are feathered.
do you also think there's a strong case that humans are scaled because many other mammals are scaled?

the thing is most theropods by a huge majority didn't have feathers. Not counting birds, feathered theropods are less than 2% of known theropods.

and just like we know for a fact humans don't have scales, we know for a fact Tyrannosaurus didn't have feathers. You're welcome to disagree, but that changes nothing.

>>2402509
>do you also think there's a strong case that humans are scaled because many other mammals are scaled?

Assuming you mean furred instead of scaled, then yes. If I was an alien and you described humans to me without mentioning integument and then told me they're descended from a group of primarily furred animals, then I would assume humans are furry too.

>>2402509
>the thing is most theropods by a huge majority didn't have feathers. Not counting birds, feathered theropods are less than 2% of known theropods.
But they all descended from a feathered ancestor, and some like T-rex have feathers in very closely related dinosaurs to boot.

>we know for a fact Tyrannosaurus didn't have feathers
No we don't. Even in the study for this new section of scales, they outright state that Tyrannosaurus probably still had feathers, just less than we though.

>>2402511
>Assuming you mean furred instead of scaled, then yes.
I meant scaled since there are about as many scaled mammals as there are known feathered theropods.
>But they all descended from a feathered ancestor
this idea was debunked years ago.
>they outright state that Tyrannosaurus probably still had feathers
lol

you mean this:
>Combined with evidence from other tyrannosaurids, the integument of HMNS 2006.1743.01 provides compelling evidence of an entirely squamous covering in Tyrannosaurus.
or this?
>Integument in Albertosaurus, Daspletosaurus, Gorgosaurus, Tarbosaurus and Tyrannosaurus collectively covers parts of the neck, abdomen, hips and tail, suggesting that most (if not all) large-bodied tyrannosaurids were scaly
or this?
>Tyrannosaurids do not, therefore, exhibit the widely distributed filamentous feathers present in Dilong and Yutyrannus, where scales are unknown

they literally said the opposite of what you're pretending.

>>2402509
>many other mammals are scaled
No they aren't.

>>2402527
>No they aren't.
that was my point.
there's about as many scaled mammals as there are known feathered non-avian theropods.

not many at all.

>>2402529
It's about phylogenetic position, not quantity.

>>2402530
indeed.

phylogenetic position without DNA evidence is notoriously unreliable though.

>>2402125

People have gone over the paper.

It's bullshit. The areas they cover were known to be featherless in other tyrannosaurids species.

Nothing has changed.

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>>2402618

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>>2402149
Water dripping away instead of running all the way down the body comes to mind

>>2402385
To be fair, male humans(don't know about other male animals that have nipples) can lactate, whether it's stimulated or a side effect. Not sure if that ever in human history has benefited males though.

>>2402756
I know even less about prehistoric environments and plants than I do dinosaurs. Since I'm redpilled by media and old books on dinosaurs, I just imagine hot and humid climate. Also assuming trex was warm blooded.

Do we know anything about whether or not dinosaurs had ticks/parasites? Or would their skin be too thick? If they didn't have feathers, would their skin be effected by a sun so they possibly took mud or dust baths?

>>2402788
>To be fair, male humans(don't know about other male animals that have nipples) can lactate, whether it's stimulated or a side effect. Not sure if that ever in human history has benefited males though.

There's a species of bat where males naturally lactate and feed their young.

>>2402618
This

The fact that /an/ decided to be reactionary and immediately assumed T rex must have had no feathers because of tiny spots of scales being found was funny. The other thread has devolved into people who know almost nothing spouting "Featherfags BTFO" it's kinda sad really

I just wanna hug a fuzzy Rex t b h

>>2402788
>Do we know anything about whether or not dinosaurs had ticks/parasites? Or would their skin be too thick?

They certainly had mosquitos, no reason they wouldn't have others. Modern animals with thick skin like Rhinos aren't immune the parasites either.

>>2402618
>The areas they cover were known to be featherless in other tyrannosaurids species.
what they did was correct the popular media which was putting feathers on an unfeathered animal.

yes, we've known for a long time rex didn't have feathers. It's even mentioned in the Yutyrannus paper. Some prominent artists misunderstood this and a few paleontologists went along with them. This paper corrects the mistake by flatly demonstrating rex didn't have feathers.

>>2402793
>immediately assumed T rex must have had no feathers because of tiny spots of scales being found was funny
you're going to find that 1, that is exactly what this paper said, and 2, it isn't bullshit and it's not going away.

the paper didn't cover any new ground. All it did was repeat known facts that were being ignored.

>>2402788

The thing about parasitic insects is that their methods don't care how thick or though your skin is. They just find the tiny weak spots.

>>2402928

>selective reading: the post

The original paper accounts for the possibility of feathers in the huge chunks of integument not found, which is known to be feathered on relatives.

>>2402970
it says they lacked feathers about 20 times for the one time it says they *MIGHT* have had feathers on the ridge of the back.

this is a concession to featherfags like yourself. They had to throw you a bone so you don't riot and suicide. The authors don't honestly believe the ridge of the back was feathered. This would be something never seen in nature before, which means it's probably impossible.

>>2402972
Except it's faulty logic.

There are still huge chunks of the animal that there are no skin impressions that have been found as shown in the OP.

The paper changes nothing we already didn't know.

The paper shouldn't say "Oh we know for a fact that T rex had zero feathers." It should say "We know T rex had no feathers in these areas" It draws conclusions we don't have from the evidence found.

>Oh it's in a paper so it's 100% factual

Remember Jack Horner's papers about obligate scavenging and Triceratops and Torosaurus being the same species? Remember the quadruped spinosaurus paper?

>>2402992
>It draws conclusions we don't have from the evidence found.
This is literally the definition of science.

it's called induction. We look at what we know and make predictions about what we don't know.

we know rex was about 90% scaled. We predict the 10% we don't know about is also scaled. This is how science works and it's sad I have to explain it to you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning

>>2402997
>we know rex was about 90% scaled. We predict the 10% we don't know about is also scaled

Except that's wrong.

There are still very large areas we do not have impressions of. The OP pic shows what I am talking about perfectly

>>2403002
>There are still very large areas we do not have impressions of.
irrelevant.
the areas between samples didn't have feathers, and no amount of pretending will put them there.

the simple fact is A SINGLE SCALED SKIN SAMPLE IS SUFFICIENT TO CONSIDER A DINOSAUR ENTIRELY SCALED.

We have far more than the one we'd need.

>>2403005

Can't tell if troll or really that stupid.

>>2403013
If you look at a single random spot on a chicken, what are the odds that spot will have scales?

>>2403016

About 10%. 20 tops.

>>2403019
>About 10%. 20 tops.
yep.

so if rex was feathered what are the odds that a single random skin sample would have scales?

>>2403025

Going by its relatives, about 40% tops.

Going by what has actually been found of the animal. 10%.

>>2403031
>Going by its relatives, about 40% tops
this has been examined in science already, the results aren't nearly that high.

about 90% of feathered non-avian theropods are FULLY FEATHERED. About 10% are missing feathers on part of the body other than feet or face.

this is much higher than modern birds, which are over 99% fully feathered. But it's still not higher than say, mammals and fur.

So rex is slightly more likely to have scaled patches than birds based on comparison to its relatives- about 10% vs less than 1% in birds. But that 10% likelihood is still not enough to make anyone predict feathers when scales are found.

>>2403036

Dude, you're making a goddamn salad out of your arguments.


What is known:

At most 10% total of Tyrannosaurus skin has been found. It was scaly.

Its ancestors have been found to have been feathers to various degrees.

Close relatives have scales and feathers to various degrees.

The areas of Tyrannosaurus known to be scaly are known to be scaly in its feathered relatives.

The parsimonious assupmtion to take is that Tyrannosaurus had scales and feathers.

Going by the distribution of its relatives, a 40/60 ratio, with favor to scales.

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>>2403036
>this is much higher than modern birds, which are over 99% fully feathered.
>But it's still not higher than say, mammals and fur.

>>2403039

You know what, forget about 10%. It's even less.

Given the size of the animal, it's like 1% total.

>>2403039
yes, what I'm telling you is that's incorrect.

out of about 26 dinosaurs known directly from feathers, only 4 aren't fully feathered.

of those 4, 2 aren't theropods.

so your argument fails when we look at numbers. And science looks at numbers.

>>2403041
the sample constitutes less than 1% of the skin.

it's distributed over more than 80% of the skin though.

really this is pretty basic science. If you don't get it I have to assume you failed high school or are an American. A sample doesn't have to be large to be representative.

>>2403047

You fucking idiot. The skin consists of parts of the neck, the legs, tail and underbelly.

ALL KNOWN TO BE SCALED IN FEATHERED RELATIVES.

>>2403048
>ALL KNOWN TO BE SCALED IN FEATHERED RELATIVES

yes, that's wrong.

you can't name a single non-avian theropod that has feathers everywhere but the neck, legs, tail, and abdomen.

not a single fucking one.

because that doesn't exist.

>>2402479
Yes, Megaraptora is a shit show. We've known this. So if it falls in Tyrannosauroidea then its a waste basket group, otherwise, Tyrannosauroidea is not. Its more likely that Megaraptora is an allosauroid group, as recent analyses have shown it to be so. Excluding this clade and going by the Brusatte and Carr's latest phylogenetic analysis, nearly all tyrannosauroids are known from fairly complete specimens. That being said, the phylogenetic placements of these genera consistently fall within (almost) same position. Only in a few papers has Dilong and Yutyrannus fallen outside of Tyrannosauroidea.

>>2403772
you're still assuming Tyrannosauroidea and Allosauroidea are valid taxa.

their diagnoses consist of (the same) suite of derived characters found converging in all theropod lineages.

they aren't real taxa, and it doesn't matter if your tree consistently places one animal in or out of a fake taxon based on its real level of derivation and convergence.

>>2403780
You're probably right.

Phylogenetics isn't real either. Even with DNA you still can't prove lineage.

Welcome to paleontology. This is as good as its getting so keep whining about how bad the fossil record is.

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>>2402504
>This lizard doesn't have legs
>All lizards must have lacked legs

>>2404079
I'm not complaining about phylogenetics. I'm saying if you diagnose both zebras and tigers as "has stripes and 4 legs" then it doesn't matter if you classify a skunk as a tiger or a zebra because neither assignment works.

tyrannosauroid and allosauroid are meaningless because they both share each others' traits, and those traits are found in all derived theropods.

this is why we have problems with megaraptors- they could be tyrannosauroids or allosauroids or neither because the classifications are meaningless. The same is true of pretty much every tyrannosauroid yet named.

>T. Rex feather argument again
>no one posted Trey
come on, you guys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxE68c9rYa0

>>2404140
thanks, now I see where the featherfag on /an/ gets his talking points.

Ultimately Trey is wrong on most of his points.

each one can be debunked individually, but as usual he spews them too fast to address conveniently.

>>2404141
>Ultimately Trey is wrong on most of his points
It is strange he assumes a peer-reviewed scientific paper is full of errors when he's no scientist and it's more likely his opinions are in error.

not that it matters, anyone can criticize science. But if he was right he'd publish his ideas. But that won't happen because errors like his don't generally get published.

>>2404142
read the paper you delusional faggot

>>2404145
I did read the paper.
Unlike you and Trey I've also read most of the papers it cites.

so I know for example that one patch of scales is all most scientists need to declare an entire animal scaled. I know that if feathers were present they'd leave a trace that could be found by UV spectrography or with a microscope. I know that the unfeathered areas on Yutyrannus are different on all three specimens meaning the feathers were not preserved, not that those areas were bald in life. I know that none of the unfeathered areas on Yutyrannus had scales. I know that while there are indeed a couple dinosaurs that lack feathers in ONE OR TWO AREAS of the body, there are NONE that lack them in all the areas Wyrex does. I know that the neck patch has been known TO PALEONTOLOGISTS for 10 years now, and just because he never heard of it doesn't mean it's new. And finally I understand why even tiny skin patches form a huge sample because the areas between them didn't have feathers.

Most importantly, I understand that
>if it had feathers
does not mean
>it probably had feathers

the guy's a retard.

>>2404154
also of course the ostrich doesn't have scales where it's missing feathers.

that's some real retardation there.

>>2404155
>that's some real retardation there.
He's a liar not a retard.