Lets start here...
http://www.grpm.org/explore/exhibits-2/past-exhibits/dinosaurs-unearthed/
Show me in the fossil record where T-Rex had feathers...I believe an atheistic evolutionary worldview is being promoted.
Okay I can take your opinion in this matter of the organisms appearing on the scene...or I can look to other data that is presented...
"in the Chengjian site—which corresponds to the beginning of the Cambrian-the fossil record actually shows the simultaneous appearance of primitive and advanced chordates."
I am not a paleotologist...are you? Thereby my POV is based on scientists' discoveries and interpretations, yet does that matter in this informal discussion? What is your POV based on?
Here is a thought, you could actually read what is being presented before formulating an opinion of it. I did present valid information concerning the website, yet you decided to formulate an entire opinion based on partial information...interesting...I thought you liked to look into all sides of a situation and properly weigh them unbiasedly.
I would say all opinions are worth hearing, their validity depends on their truth value.
I can say I am uncertain what
Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus' downy, ribboned plumes are except bristles and scales.
I don't know what primitive feathers look like, I have never seen any. I personally have no expectations.
My promotion of the stereotype was sarcasm...I thought you could have read into that. Sorry for my assumptions.
Classification of fossils utilizes measuring and dating as the main vehicle of process.
Kulindadromeus fossils display an assortment of scales and bristles, all remarkably preserved in fine detail. There are large thin scales on its tail, medium-sized scales on the lower legs, and tiny scales over its hands and feet. There are also thin bristles of various sorts on the head and body and little groups of bristles each attached to a scale-like base on the arms and thighs.
The scales include hexagonal scales (<3.5 mm long) overlapping like roof tiles covering the lower tibia (shin bone), reported as “resembling the scutella in modern birds.”
5 Tiny round non-overlapping scales (<1 mm) appear along the ankle, foot, wrist, and hand bones. Larger scales up to 20 mm long and 10 mm wide protected this dinosaur’s tail. Very thin (<100 µm) and slightly overlapping, they are arranged in five longitudinal rows, with the largest ones near the body.
The bristles include monofilaments scattered on the body and head, with the thinnest and shortest (0.15 mm diameter, 10–15 mm long) on the head and slightly larger bristles (0.2–0.3 mm diameter, 20–30 mm long) elsewhere. According to the researchers, these bristles resemble the monofilament “dino-fuzz”
4 on the theropod
Sinosauropteryx.5 Though
National Geographic describes these randomly oriented bristles as “streamlining”
6 the body, Godefroit’s team reports they have “no preferred orientation.”
5
Located on the upper arms and thighs are tufts of fine, inch-long filaments. Each tuft consists of six or seven filaments connected to a little plate at the base. The little plates, which may be “modified scales,”
5 are arranged in hexagonal patterns but are not contiguous with each other. There are no shafts, barbs, or barbules on these patterned tufts of bristles, but the authors liken them to the barbule-lacking down on some modern varieties of chickens,
5 but down normally has some barbules and certainly has no basal plates like these. Near the knees are “ribbon-shaped elements . . . an arrangement that has never previously been reported and that could represent a third feather-like morphotype in
Kulindadromeus,”
5 the researchers suggest, but both the size and resolution of the images (Fig. G, H, and I) give no clear evidence for classifying these structures as feathers, such as barbs and barbules.
Kulindadromeus has bristles, not feathers. Nevertheless, coauthor Maria McNamara says, “These feathers are really very well preserved.”
6 The researchers conclude “grouped filaments that we interpret as avianlike feathers”
5 suggest “that all Dinosauria could have had feathers and that feathers arose for purposes of insulation and signaling and were only later co-opted for flight.”
5
These scales around the lower leg (A) and tail (B and C) were preserved in remarkable detail on fossilized dinosaurs in Siberian Jurassic dinosaur graveyards. Such detail demands that these animals were quickly and catastrophically buried without time to decay. Image: P. Godefroit et al., “A Jurassic ornithischian dinosaur from Siberia with both feathers and scales,”
Science 345 (25 July 2014): 451–455.
These filaments on the forelimb (in A, B, and C) and hindlimb (in D, E, and F) of
Kulindadromeus fossils represent the most complex of the filaments on the fossils. These bristles are connected at the base to small plates arranged in a hexagonal pattern. There are no shafts, barbs, or barbules as would be expected if these were actually feathers. The basal plates may be a kind of scale, the researchers suggest. Image: P. Godefroit et al., “A Jurassic ornithischian dinosaur from Siberia with both feathers and scales,”
Science 345 (25 July 2014): 451–455.
Godefroit’s team of paleontologists also noticed, higher up on the tibia from the other bristles, some “clusters of six or seven ribbon-shaped elements. . . . Each individual element is 15 to 20 mm long and 1.5 to 3 mm wide.”
5 They admit that they do not know what these are, as “This is an arrangement that has never previously been reported.”
5 Due to their bias that the bristles on this animal are feathers, or at least elements in the evolutionary history of feathers, they conclude that the ribbons “could represent a third featherlike morphotype in Kulindadromeus.”
5 The size and lack of resolution of these fossilized ribbon structures are certainly not very convincing—and there is no mention of barbules or hooks on these structures in the literature; therefore it must be their feathery bias that prompts them to see these unique, unidentified, ribbon-shaped elements as feathers. Image: P. Godefroit et al., “A Jurassic ornithischian dinosaur from Siberia with both feathers and scales,”
Science 345 (25 July 2014): 451–455.
