Dinosaur With Mature Feathers Uncovered in China

AP via Fox News ^ | 3/6/2002

[CholeraJoe]

Paleontologists working in China say they have unearthed the first fossil of a dinosaur that appeared to have mature feathers identical to those of modern birds, including long, showy plumage on its tail and hind legs.

The U.S.-Chinese research team said the 3-foot fossil should settle once and for all the debate over whether birds and dinosaurs are related.

[Harrison Bergeron]

Amelia: Harold, STOP IT! Those were my best pillows...Quit playing with that dog. Oh, you idiot, those were my mother's feathers!

Harold: I didn't know your mother had feathers.

From It's a Gift, starring W. C. Fields

[ColdSteelTalon]

Well well well, science again contradicts itself. What's new? I was told in biology as other students for generations before me that Dinosaurs were cold blooded reptiles. If I had said then that they actually are more like chickens, then they would have sent me to the office to see the princpal for being obtuse.

Just can't trust what science says...

[CholeraJoe]

Can you imagine the problems cleaning your car of dinosaur crap after it sat in the sun all day. Whew!

You'd need a firehose.

[RightWhale]

Isn't this the story from a couple years ago? The Chinese farmer with some hoax time on his hands?

[xsmommy]

just glad you included me in with the girls....

[Harrison Bergeron]

We have albino peafowl here at a local zoo.

Yeah.. I always assumed that zoos had those things walking all around the place as part of the "zoo" ambience, what with the peacocks being so picturesque and all. Turns out they ravenously consume ticks as their main diet. One pea hen will keep the average yard clean all Summer. Our dog trainer recommends that people keep them if local zoning allows, especially if you live in spotted fever territory.

[VadeRetro]

A dinosaur could easily have had feathers for insulation, but not flight feathers. Gigantic difference; the one could not plausibly evolve from the other.

Bird or dinosaur?

[Doomonyou]

Well there you go...

[Lurking Libertarian]

One Chinese fossil was shown to be a hoax. It was believed, for a short time, because a lot of feathered dinosaur fossils have been found in China. Most have held up to scrutiny. One even has a forelimbs halfway between a leg and a wing, which makes it about as transitional as you can get.

[Harrison Bergeron]

"I'm thinking forty foot ostriches with bad attitudes.

The now extinct Moa from New Zealand comes to mind.

[CholeraJoe]

Isn't this the story from a couple years ago?

This is apparently a new one.

[medved]

Penguins and ostriches DEVOLVED from flying birds; you'd expect them to have flight feathers or at least it wouldn't surprise you. But a flight feather is a major engineering advance which could not plausibly evolve from hair or insulation feathers. It has complex structure, interlocking barbules etc., and a complex system for allowing it to be turned so that the flight feathers open like a venetian blind on upstrokes and then close again on downstrokes, and without all of that, the whole thing is useless.

[txhurl]

One of my favorite quotes:

...After surveying such theories [wild prognostications as to the cause of the 'saur's demise], satirist Will Cuppy wrote that 'The age of Reptiles ended because it had gone on long enough and it was all a mistake in the first place. The bats are going to flop, too, and everybody knows it but the bats themselves."

[VadeRetro]

Archaeoraptor. It led to one of those "more noise than light" threads.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

"I would want to be very certain that the fossil has not been deliberately salted with feathers from some other source."

So would I. Wouldn't you?

[Free the USA]

Check the Bump List folders for articles related to the above topic(s) or for other topics of interest.

[Dimensio]

Just can't trust what science says...

Yep, that's science for you, always modifying its theories when new evidence comes to light that contradicts older theories. Religion never does that; when physical evidence contradicts religion, they don't throw out the old religion -- they throw out the physical evidence!

[patriot_wes]

This wasn't funny Joe. I came over to check this out thinking there was a Hillary joke in here somewhere.
This is just about dinasaurs!

[RickGee]

False alarm. Somebody was watching the dinosaurs on NBC and got confused.

[RikaStrom]

a two-legged carnivore that could not fly and belongs to the same family as the larger and more fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex.

An ancient ostrich?

Somehow I just can't picture a relative to T-Rex sticking his head in a hole! Into an herbivore yes, but not the ground. ;-)