Not really. I know you find little rays of hope even where there aren't any, but I'd say the door is about slammed shut on any non-feather interpretation.
And, as I said, feathered dinosaurs don't equal transitional species any more than hairy long tailed dogs equal cats.
Think about this. The thing is not a bird and it has some feathers, although no way are they enough to fly.
You're saying Archaeopteryx is a bird, but Archaeopteryx has almost the same underlying skeleton as the thing which may be a young Sinornithosaurus and which may have some feathers but is a dinosaur.
What modern bird has the skeleton of what modern reptile?
Then, there are the claws.
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| Fig. 1: Archaeopteryx | Fig. 2: Deinonychus |
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| Fig. 3: Hoatzin chick | Fig. 4: Hoatzin adult |
Why do birds have foreclaws that look like dinosaur foreclaws, at least before the bones fuse? Why do fossil birds have unfused dinosaurian foreclaws? (Sort of like, why do fossil whales have legs, if you get my drift.)
