August 28, 2012
Who Doesn’t Love Fuzzy Dinosaurs?
I adore feathered dinosaurs. It feels a little strange to say that, but it’s true. Few things make me happier than seeing delicately-rendered restorations of theropods covered in fuzz and ceratopsians with some accessory bristles. The various bits of plumage–from quill-like structures to true feathers–make dinosaurs look even more wonderful and fantastic than the drab, scaly monsters I grew up with. And who wouldn’t love a fluffy like dinosaur like Sciurumimus, perhaps the cutest dinosaur of all time?
Of course, not everyone feels the same way. There are some people who want their dinosaurs to be scaly, scaly, scaly, science be damned. They weep, wail and gnash their teeth whenever a new study suggests that another branch of the dinosaur family tree might have been adorned with plumage. It’s as if they expect the Dinosauria to be consistent with an unchanging canon–sci-fi and comic fans suffer a similar apoplexy when one of their favorite characters deviates from their most cherished storyline.
io9′s “We Come From the Future” show recently debated whether science had “ruined” dinosaurs by decorating so many non-avian species with feathers. (Remember–birds are dinosaurs, too, and there have been some very scary birds in the history of life on earth). Granted, some restorations of feathery dinosaurs really do look stupid, and the minor plumes on the heads of Jurassic Park III‘s Velociraptor didn’t really help.
The show’s point-counterpoint debate on the matter isn’t totally serious, and it’s a way to get a tidbit of science out to a wider audience. That’s a good thing. All the same, I’m pretty sick of people who complain that feathers somehow detract from dinosaurian magnificence. How immature can you get? We all love the dinosaurs we first meet as kids, and, for many of us, those leviathans were drab and scaly. But those earlier versions have been slit from stem to stern by more active, colorful and complex dinosaurs, many of which had some kind of feather-like body covering. Which would you prefer? The scaly, sluggish pot-bellied Tyrannosaurus of the mid-20th century, or a svelte, agile predator that has a few patches of fuzz?
Don’t misunderstand me here. I’m not saying that all dinosaurs looked like big chickens. Dinosaurs exhibited an array of body structures–from simple, fuzzy tubes to bristles and full-on flight feathers. Some species, like modern birds, even exhibited several different types of feathers. The weird Beipiaosaurus, for one, had fuzzy protofeathers on much of its body but also had a sort of tail fan created by a different feather type. And “feathered dinosaur” doesn’t mean that the animal was entirely cloaked in plumage. Take Psittacosaurus, for example–this little ceratopsian was a very, very distant relative of birds and had a row of bristles along its tail. The structures were probably visual signals, and I have no doubt that same was true among other dinosaurs. Feathers aren’t just about flight or insulation, but they’re also important in display and communication.
And feathers are the key to dinosaur color. I’m still awestruck that we can recreate the colors of creatures that have been extinct for tens of millions of years. By comparing the microscopic details of prehistoric dinosaur feathers to the feathers of modern birds, we can finally answer that most persistent of paleo questions. That fact, alone, makes feathered dinosaurs especially magnificent.
I’m weary of this Portlandia-esque attitude that dinosaurs are over if they’re feathered. Please. New scientific discoveries are allowing us to gain unprecedented insights into the biology of dinosaurs, including the lives of the fluffy species. Feathers are just part of that bigger picture, and I’m ecstatic that paleontologists are reconstructing dinosaurs in ever-greater detail. The point is this. Feathered dinosaurs are awesome. Deal with it.
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Hi Brian. You very eloquently describe just how and why feathered dinosaurs are wonderful and I agree – they are wondrous creatures to behold. But you cannot keep on moaning about people just because they have a different opinion to yours!
I saw on Twitter the other night how you describe those people who like scaly dinosaurs as “lame”. Not once have I described anyone as “lame” or “immature” because they dare to have a difference of opinion from my own.
As I have said before, I am not refuting that feathered dinosaurs exist am I? I, and others like me, are not sulking, weeping or wailing because of every new feathered dinosaur that is discovered. And most importantly – I am certainly not saying “science be damned”. That is unfair and uncalled for.
Feathered dinosaurs are here to stay and will almost certainly diversify as more and more fossils are discovered – and bring it on I say. But the point is this. Not everyone shares your enthusiam for them and I hope that you can accept this. It’s only an opinion after all.
About Beipiaosaurus inexpectatus, at least recently some pushback has occurred over the proliferation of “novel feather types,” suggesting that some of these are preservational artefacts. This would make the integument form and shape a little closer to standard types I-V progression without much deviation, thus taking “novel types” and placing variation in the frame of poor preservation.
See this link and…
Foth, C. 2012. On the identification of feather structures in stem-line representatives of birds: Evidence from fossils and actuopalaeontology. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 86:91-102.
I like feathered dinosaurs, too. I find the whole idea very exciting. (And it’s also made me a lot more interested in birds.)
I could imagine paleontologists from the far future finding fossil bones of long-extinct birds and mammals and reconstructing them naked, without fur or feathers. That would be just plain wrong. Even people who are familiar with animals often do not recognize them without fur (witness all the “chupacabra” sightings that turn out to be dogs or coyotes with severe mange).
Scaly dinosaurs may be just as wrong. Why would anyone want to be wrong?
People typically hate change. Dinosaurs had feathers. It’s undeniable, and it doesn’t make them any less scary. I was offended that they said that the “purpose” of dinosaurs is to be scary. I don’t care whether or not you’re joking–it’s a dumb thing to say, especially if you’re broadcasting to the public on the internet. Being “dumb” is so 1990. Smart is sexy.
I always ask people, “If feathers make an animal less scary, then where does that leave the Cassowary?”.
People are scared to death of my pet Emu, even though he lacks the teeth and forelimbs of a Non-Avian Dinosaur and is about the friendliest bird you’d ever meet.
More than just being awesome, feathered dinosaurs are FACT. Whining that feathers are “ruining dinosaurs” is a bit like denying reality, and that’s what bugs me, personally.
I feel that Hollywood is missing a huuuuge opportunity with feathered dinosaurs. I mean, the cheesy B movie just writes itself! Someone see’s a large, strange looking bird in their back yard. They go outside to investigate and take a picture to upload to Instagram. Too late they realize that it isn’t a bird, it’s a dinosaur! And it’s not alone! And they’re hungry! OH NOOOOOOO!!! XD
All I can say is that the dinosaurs in JP4 damn better have feathers.
I’d like to point out that the video entitled “How Science Ruined Everything” is brought to you by a person who was using a computer to edit pieces of film together and to communicate his message via the internet, and who also got to live past the age of fifteen in a house that contained a device that allowed him to stock perishable food in cold storage so he could eat it whenever he wanted, contained other devices that could heat said foods quickly to desirable temperatures, contained yet other devices that gave him light, heat, and hot and cold running water at times when such things would naturally be unavailable, and was connected to the rest of the world via television, phones, and the aforementioned internet.
Also, if you think feathered dinosaurs look “stupid”, “lame”, “goofy”, or “gay” (by the way, careful, your latent homophobia is showing), why do you hate America? (Bald eagles are feathered dinosaurs, ergo…)
“I don’t care whether or not you’re joking–it’s a dumb thing to say, especially if you’re broadcasting to the public on the internet.”
I concur. Whenever I think about ppl like that, I think about the deviations in the following links. I’ve never talked to anyone like that in person, but if I did, I’d bring up cassowaries &/or Hitchcock’s “The Birds”.
http://babbletrish.deviantart.com/art/Public-Service-Announcement-163855916
http://babbletrish.deviantart.com/art/Another-PSA-Addendum-284130725
“It’s as if they expect the Dinosauria to be consistent with an unchanging canon–sci-fi and comic fans suffer a similar apoplexy when one of their favorite characters deviates from their most cherished storyline.
The point is this. Feathered dinosaurs are awesome. Deal with it.”
Couldn’t agree more.
(The Ulster Museum in Belfast is having a talk about dinosaur feather colour in a week or two, as part of their current dino ‘season’. I gotta go check it out!)
“Granted, some restorations of feathery dinosaurs really do look stupid…”
Oh, and check out the UM’s main illustration:
http://www.nmni.com/um/What-s-on/Current-Exhibitions/Age-of-the-Dinosaur
I hate to break this to you Brian, but ‘scaly’ dinosaurs are here to stay as well, including some very scary ones in which the fossil record proves they were scaly, like Albertosaurus and Carnotaurus. The only problem with this feather buisness, is that the average person is now getting the wrong idea that most dinosaurs were covered with feathers or fuzz, and there is NO indication this is true.
^ I wouldn’t say that just look at Sciurumimus. At the moment is parsimonious to say feather like structures are homologous to all dinosauria. Whether some lineages lost their integument is now the million dollar question.
ha! easter chicks ARE dinosaurs.
Some dinosaurs had feathers. Some more had protofeathers or hair-like structures, and there is a possibility that all dinosaurs had them. We don’t know that yet. That is what science can tell us for the moment. What science certainly cannot tell us is that ‘The point is this. Feathered dinosaurs are awesome. Deal with it.’ That purely a matter of your personal taste and has nothing to do with science. The opinion of those who think that scaly dinosaurs are more awesome is no more immature than yours.