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The Ornithomimosaur Thread

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭ Galvasean


    Damn you Tarbosaurus, gobbling up all the evidence!


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,551 ✭✭✭ Rubecula


    Ha ha ha.

    But of course Tarbosaurus was merely a big scavenger. :P ;)

    *Goes and hangs his head in shame*


  • Registered Users Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭ Galvasean


    I'm sure most of you were expecting this news sooner or later.
    A trio of Ornithomimus skeletons have finally confirmed what paleontologists expected. Zelenitsky enthusiastically explained the details to me by phone earlier this week. In 1995, when Zelenitsky was a graduate student, paleontologists uncovered an articulated Ornithomimus with weird marks on its forearms. No one knew what they were. But in 2008 and 2009 a juvenile and an adult Ornithomimus turned up with preserved tufts of filamentous feathers. “When we found these specimens,” Zelenitsky said, “we made the link to the 1995 dinosaur.” All those strange marks on the arms of the previously discovered Ornithomimus, Zelenitsky and colleagues argue, are traces of longer, shafted feathers.
    http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/dinosaur/2012/10/feathery-ostrich-mimics-enfluffle-the-dinosaur-family-tree/

    How long before the 'big guy' (you know the one I'm talking about...) 'comes out' of the feathered dinosaur closet?

    feathered-ornithomimus.jpg
    Art by Julius Csotonyi.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,184 ✭✭✭ 3ndahalfof6


    It was not his power, he smothered them to death.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Adam Khor


    Most awesome news, the first feathered dinos from the New World! :D It is very fitting that it was Ornithomimus itself.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭ Galvasean


    I remember hearing about a featherless ornithomimosaur skin impression ages ago, so maybe feathers were a seasonal thing.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,551 ✭✭✭ Rubecula


    A sauropod, a big one, covered in massive fluffy feathers would have been an incredible sight. I wonder if there is any chance of a TV show "Walking with Possibly Feathered Beasties Of the Past"

    Or could our resident artists draw something along those line? If it walked on land, Feather It :)


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 85,563 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Capt'n Midnight


    Rubecula wrote: »
    A sauropod, a big one, covered in massive fluffy feathers would have been an incredible sight.
    Something that size wouldn't need feathers to stay warm.

    Whales have problems keeping cool, their blubber is more an energy store than insulation.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Adam Khor


    Something that size wouldn't need feathers to stay warm.

    Whales have problems keeping cool, their blubber is more an energy store than insulation.

    Maybe not for insulation but for display? Its hard to believe but on the other hand, there's evidence that some land crocodylomorphs probably had whiskers. In a world in which crocs have whiskers, sauropods could easily have feathers or feather-like ornaments as well.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Adam Khor


    http://www.metronews.ca/news/ottawa/2016/09/21/carleton-student-discovers-new-ostrich-like-dinosaur.html

    rativates_evadens_by_olorotitan-dailu38.jpg
    Was supossedly misclassified as Struthiomimus altus for 80 years. I'm always skeptical about "new species" found along with very similar, already established ones. The differences don t seem that big...


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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Adam Khor




  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Adam Khor


    Study suggests it was about eight years old at the moment of death, and almost fully grown at around 3 meters long.

    http://www.eartharchives.org/articles/rativates-dinosaur-park-formation-s-fourth-ostrich-mimic/?platform=hootsuite

    Rativates_1200.jpg?1475128414


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,551 ✭✭✭ Rubecula


    interesting. wonder if they are accurate in age/size/maturity?


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Adam Khor


    I suppose they can never be a hundred per cent accurate, but it seems reasonable enough considering what we know about other dinosaurs. T. rex, for example, is believed to have reached its full size at age 18 or so. It makes sense that Rativates being a much smaller animal would need less than half this time to finish its growing. Modern day ostriches reach sexual maturity at around 3 or 4 years old.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,279 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Adam Khor


    Paraxenisaurus, a new deinocheirid ornithomimosaur from northern Mexico- first of its kind found outside of Asia.

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0895981120301231

    220px-Paraxenisaurus_normalensis_as_Deinocheirid.jpg


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