Living dinosaurs

abc.net.au ^ | 9/30/2002

[SteveH]

News in Science

News in Science 30/9/2002 Living dinosaurs

[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s687677.htm]

	Model of Sinosauropteryx sprima (pronounced 'sine-oh-saw-op-te-rix pree-ma')made by Alan Groves working with palaeontologists Drs Walter Boles and Sue Hand.

If we are to believe the message of a new exhibit demonstrating the evolutionary transition from dinosaurs to birds, dinosaurs are not extinct.

Four life-sized reconstructions of ferocious-looking, smart-thinking, flesh-eating feathered dinosaurs – representing 125 million-year-old missing links between dinosaurs and birds – have landed at the Australian Museum in Sydney as part of the Chinese Dinosaurs exhibition.

"The birds we see flying around our backyards are actually living dinosaurs, descendants of prehistoric beasts we all once presumed became extinct 65 million years ago," said museum director, Professor Mike Archer.

"But feathers were evolving as dinosaur attributes long before they became valuable as flight structures," he said.

"Indeed fossils uncovered in the Liaoning Province of China have provided a whole sequence of missing links in the dinosaur to bird story."

Model of Sinornithosaurus smillenii (pronounced 'sine-or-nith-oh-saw-rus mill-en-ee-eye) made by Alan Groves working with palaeontologists Drs Walter Boles and Sue Hand.
 

One of the earlier links is Sinosauropteryx prima. The creature is covered with what looks to be a fine fuzz but are really small barbs – a link between scales and feathers.

"It's a metre-long, meat-eating, ground-dwelling predator, closely related to the dinosaur in Jurassic Park II which ate the little girl on the beach," said Professor Archer.

He speculated these very early feathers were probably for insulation since this group was almost certainly warm blooded.

The Sinornithosaurus millenii (top picture) embodies a later link.

"This is a very vicious little predator about a metre long. But here the feathers are much larger – although they're not fully formed or capable of flight," said Professor Archer.

An interesting characteristic of the creature was its capacity to lift its arms over its head in a flapping motion. Professor Archer said scientists assumed its array of feathers had a purpose – to frighten predators, help capture prey, attract mates or threaten male competitors.

The next stage – the development of feathers for flight – is seen in creatures like the Archseopteryx, a smaller animal than Sinornithosaurus millenii with longer and assymetrical feathers.

While there has been some debate as to whether dinosaurs (unlike other groups of reptiles) are the ancestors of birds, Professor Archer believes since 1996 there has been no strong argument against the hypothesis.

"I don't know anyone who is still holding out on this one," he said. "Other than the creationists of course who don't want anything to be ancestral to birds."

Chinese Dinosaurs is open until February next year. The dino-bird exhibit is sponsored by The Australian Skeptics.

Anna Salleh - ABC Science Online

More Info?

British Natural History Museum Dino-Birds Exhibition

Missing link from fur to feathers – News in Science 27/4/2001

Dinosaur fossil with proto-feathers – News in Science 8/3/2001

Dinosaur-bird theory defended – News in Science 24/11/2000

© ABC 2002 | privacy

[gore3000]

He got himself banned,

Your hypocrisy is unbelievable. We see right here that it was your friends who got him banned this time. We saw in numerous posts preceding his prior banning the campaign you and the evo-Taliban were conducting against him. He did not get himself banned. He was silenced by a bunch of thugs who knew that what he was saying about evolution was absolutely true and could not make any response to his statements. If you folk had been able to refute his constantly posted article you would have had no need to run to the moderators to silence him.

As to spamming - the ad-hominems, the pictures, the nonsense on the last 100 posts here shows amply well who is spamming these threads - the evolutionists who have nothing to say except insults and off-topic nonsense.

[Junior]

Those quotes all came after the discoveries of the Ediacaran fauna, long after.

Yes, but there have been even more discoveries since those words were written, or haven't you figured that out? The book I used for the "quilted animals" dates from the mid-90s. The website I gave you on modern animals that can trace their ancestry back to the Vendian is current. The fact that you have to dredge up decades-old quotes to make your point speaks poorly of your point.

[Junior]

FYI, here is something even more recent which puts the kabosh on your claims

For some years a number of authors (e.g. Seilacher 1984, McMenamin 1986) were able to argue, convincingly, that the Ediacarans were unrelated to any living group of organisms; that they represented a new kingdom (Vendobionta Seilacher 1992) which was wiped out by a mass extinction event at the Vendian-Cambrian boundary. However, much of the ‘evidence’ supporting this view has been over-turned by the discovery of Edicaran assemblages persisting into the Cambrian and of morphologically similar forms which clearly are animals. This view has now lost most of its support.  (Emphasis mine)

Note the quote postdates 1992, which means it's more up-to-date than the material you quoted.  And, it appears to contradict your assertion that Cambrian life sprang full-blown from nothing and thus obviated evolution.

[Junior]

From Ediacaran Survivors:

For many years, Ediacarans were believed to have been confined to the Vendian. Indeed, there was speculation (e.g. Seilacher 1984) that a mass extinction had terminated the Vendian and eliminated the Ediacaran biota. Since about 1990, however, there has been a steadily accumulating body of Cambrian age discoveries, and a belief that a number of Cambrian forms are, in fact, the direct descendants of Ediacarans.

I hate to keep hitting you between the eyes with stuff you should have been able to find in five minutes using a google search, but you keep making the wildest claims and backing those claims up with outdated or misquoted sources.  Do yourself a favor and simply do a web search before posting.

[f.Christian]

Valley floors...plate tops---mountains/hills/canyons...plate side--openings!

[f.Christian]

Evolution and asbestos have a lot of the same characteristics...parallels/endings too!

[forsnax5]

Your hypocrisy is unbelievable. We see right here that it was your friends who got him banned this time.

That PP was Medved was obvious to everyone who frequents these threads (even you). His return under a different name was against the site rules. Who "got him banned" when he was already banned?

We saw in numerous posts preceding his prior banning the campaign you and the evo-Taliban were conducting against him.

The "campaign" has been going on since at least 1999 (which is as long as I've been watching it). It's a battle for the lurkers, not a vendetta against Medved. Medved broke the rules, so he's gone. The battle goes on.

He did not get himself banned. He was silenced by a bunch of thugs who knew that what he was saying about evolution was absolutely true and could not make any response to his statements.

How do a "bunch of thugs" go about silencing someone? Are you saying that the moderators are taking sides because of someone's opinions about evolution?

If you folk had been able to refute his constantly posted article you would have had no need to run to the moderators to silence him.

But his constantly posted articles have been refuted many times. He simply doesn't accept refutations, so how can anyone refute what he says?.

[f.Christian]

When mutations becomes facts---science---RELIGION/power...

how can you debate that!

This is the evo mantra on the FR..."total---only evoltution----NO competition"---

OK?

[balrog666]

Next up, on the Game Show Network:

[f.Christian]

This is the evo mantra on the FR..."total---only evolution----NO competition"---

OK...better!

[f.Christian]

We need a civil rights revolution...specious/martian/alien preferences have destroyed human/American life...rights---society/values!

[Junior]

Over the hump placemarker.

[VadeRetro]

This view [discontinuity between Edicaran and Cambrian] has now lost most of its support.

They mean "non-creationist support," of course!

[scripter]

My-contract-will-be-terminated-if-that-Swedish-team-pic-appears-on-my-monitor-at-work-so-I-need-a-new-self-index-pointer, placemarker. Seriously. It's either stop reading this thread or get a new placemarker. I pick the latter...

[Virginia-American]

good point

[jennyp]

but-where-are-the-chippendales-PLACEMARKER.

[PatrickHenry]

Enter at your own risk..

[Dementon]

'Enter at your own risk' placemarker.

[Light Speed]

In 1960 in Wyoming they discovered a Parrots beak..lower half i believe.
Dated to 65 milion yrs ago.
The architecture of the beak has been studied against present day parrots..the 2 nearly match.

Primitive birds with teeth went extinct with the dino's..while toothless birds,like the Parrot survived the time curve.
At some point the reasoning must come forward...if Dino's evolved into Birds....what are fully formed birds doing living at Creteacous period.
My personal view is that the info pertaining to feathers is slim..yet the hypothesised construct is run with..it is now even stated as fact in the evolutionary books fed to our children.
This is really a fantasy that has grown wings.

Comment on dino's:
They are finding fossils from Brazil...Triassic..with counterpart in Arizona U.S.....Staurikosaurus..6 1/2 ft ..runs on 2 legs....has splayed and lengthened hands and feet with claws....4 finger with minor further back near joint.
Head like a velociraptor..with teeth..velociraptor style eye orbits..nasal configuration.
Yet it has fewer bones in its spine..and differs in hip bone numerics.
Meanwhile..creatures which look an move like crocodiles are its competetion.
However one wishes to look at probably the earliest dinosaur..it was specialized...like a raptor.
Yet later...dino's appear with lesser arcitecture development and limitations.

[VadeRetro]

In 1960 in Wyoming they discovered a Parrots beak..lower half i believe.
Dated to 65 milion yrs ago.
The architecture of the beak has been studied against present day parrots..the 2 nearly match.

True. I didn't know about that one. Thanks!

At some point the reasoning must come forward...if Dino's evolved into Birds....what are fully formed birds doing living at Creteacous period.

Is there no time? You have Ichthyornis, anatomically modern ("tern-like" with a keeled sternum) except for the teeth from around 135 mya. (It went extinct about 70 mya.) Archaeopteryx, which so many creationists dismiss as "A bird! Just a bird!" was about 150 mya, by comparison. A nice page here on early bird groups.

However one wishes to look at probably the earliest dinosaur..it was specialized...like a raptor. Yet later...dino's appear with lesser arcitecture development and limitations.

Dinosaurs radiated into all kinds of crazy niches, including becoming modern birds. I can more easily see why you want to say what you do than I can how.