Dinosaur feathers
- Thread starter chimpkin
- Start date
All my life I've been trying to convince my pals that chickens and lizards are close kin. Now that the cat is out of the bag, er.. I mean the feather is out of the amber, well I guess I feel vindicated.
Actually, I think lizards branched off from what became dinosaurs a long way back. Dinosaurs appear to have been warm...
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20000321061843data_trunc_sys.shtml
If not necessarily warmblooded...they may have just stayed warm through size:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...t-warm-blooded/2011/06/23/AG5iM6nH_story.html
My own personal notation...feathers may have adapted into flight instruments, but they are really great at keeping you warm.
I expect that's what they originally were evolved to do, keep the giant thunder chickens toasty.
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20000321061843data_trunc_sys.shtml
If not necessarily warmblooded...they may have just stayed warm through size:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...t-warm-blooded/2011/06/23/AG5iM6nH_story.html
My own personal notation...feathers may have adapted into flight instruments, but they are really great at keeping you warm.
I expect that's what they originally were evolved to do, keep the giant thunder chickens toasty.
So, there were flying dinosaurs but they didn’t necessarily have feathers? Were the flying dinosaurs actually ‘dinosaurs’, or something else? Is it accepted that birds evolved from feathered dinosaurs, or is it a contentious theory?
I find this very confusing for some reason.
I find this very confusing for some reason.
So, there were flying dinosaurs but they didn’t necessarily have feathers? Were the flying dinosaurs actually ‘dinosaurs’, or something else? Is it accepted that birds evolved from feathered dinosaurs, or is it a contentious theory?
I find this very confusing for some reason.
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Are_pterosaurs_dinosaurs#ixzz1eJz1wC2R
Ah, thanks. So it seems from your link and from a quick check of my own that:
1) Flying ‘dinosaurs’ were not dinosaurs at all, they were pterosaurs.
2) Modern birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs (ie. ‘genuine’ dinosaurs).
I find it fascinating that modern birds didn’t evolve from the flying animals like pterosaurs but from flightless dinosaurs. Amazing!
1) Flying ‘dinosaurs’ were not dinosaurs at all, they were pterosaurs.
2) Modern birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs (ie. ‘genuine’ dinosaurs).
I find it fascinating that modern birds didn’t evolve from the flying animals like pterosaurs but from flightless dinosaurs. Amazing!
Ah, thanks. So it seems from your link and from a quick check of my own that:
1) Flying ‘dinosaurs’ were not dinosaurs at all, they were pterosaurs.
2) Modern birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs (ie. ‘genuine’ dinosaurs).
I find it fascinating that modern birds didn’t evolve from the flying animals like pterosaurs but from flightless dinosaurs. Amazing!
When you were checking pterosaurs did you happen to notice all the articles about current sightings? I'd like to see one flying around.
Yeah. I saw all the same sort of compelling evidence you usually get from internet crackpots cryptozoologists.
(Fake!)
(Fake!)
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Neither did bats. They evolved from flightless mammals, some (rather strange) common ancestor of both the artiodactyls and the carnivorans who eat them.
Apparently the ability to fly is not all that amazing, if it's occurred three different times in three different ways.
And don't forget #4: the flying fish. They're really only gliders like the "flying" squirrels, but give them another twenty million years and see how they turn out!
Don't forget about flying bug life. They've been around longer than all the others.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
How stupid of me! That makes five different organic engines of flight that evolved independently.
Many of the orders of Insecta contain both flying and non-flying species. Are the flight engines the same or did even they evolve independently?