#important dino posts

[sailoruranus-archive]

ok now that im in the dino groove i just wanna say i totally still stand by my proposal that t rexes had wings though

three main reasons for this

1. although ornithomimids are still maniraptoriforms we now know u dont need to be a maniraptoran to have wings

2. im really highly doubtful that scansoriopterygids were avialans at ALL and i read something about speculating that htey are actuallybasal coelurosaurs!! and it is possible that scansoriopterygids had wings which means that less basal coelurosaurs like tyrannosaurs are freakin fair game

3. we know t rex had these muscular forearms but nobody can quite decide what they used them for yet. maybe they had muscular forearms because they had little wings!!!!

(disclaimer: i am an artist not a biologist i just read enough about dinosaurs to be able to speculate things its FUN!!!!!)

[sailoruranus-archive]

one thing that always gets me is that until feather impressions clearly showed that non avian dino primaries clearly attached to their second finger was that .. . why . .. werent they assumed to attach to the finger in the first place ?????? birds primaries attach to their finger??/ why would raptors have primaries that attach anywhere else ?????????????????????????????? 

even though this is a completely confirmed fact about raptors there  s STILL so much art of the wings jsut hanging off of the wrists and the fingers bare and it looks so off to me (i mean i used to draw gthem like that so i know its just a case of not knowing any better and i sure do know a lot more about not only paleontology but general biology than i do now to even come up with questions like that)

the only answer i can come up with is that people used to be really bent on the idea of raptors having grasping hands and i am sorry 2 say that although they could have probably definitely moved their thumbs (modern birds can! that is what the alula is!) and maybe even stuck them into holes to fiish out bugs or something , if their other fingers could move flexibly it wold probably jsut be for preening or for the express purpose of spreading their feathers

[sailoruranus-archive]

that article in that dino art i reblogged is really godo but it is important to keep in mind that even though you cannot completely accurately predict a dinosaurs body covering and stuff through phylogeny, phylogeny still makes certain traits LIKELY

like, it is very likely that coelurosaurs were feathered to some degree, but some certainly could have secondarily lost those as an adaptation

u need to consider all things not just one thing you know

why am i rambling about this when im really sick and can hardly keep my eyes open good question

[sailoruranus-archive]

animalia > reptilia > archosauria > dinosauria > theropoda > paraves > avialae

birds are avialans, which are paravians, which are theropods, which are dinosaurs, which are archosaurs, which are reptiles, which are animals.

animalia > mammalia > eutheria > primates > hominidae

humans are hominids, which are primates, which are eutherians, which are mammals, which are animals

birds are still dinosaurs the same way birds are still animals. nobody says "birds aren't animals!!! theyre DESCENDED from them"

its the same thing! you dont just stop being part of a taxonomic group. that is my simplified explanation for u

[sailoruranus-archive]

im too lazy to go looking for the things i read to provide a proper source ive read some evidence and speculation that derived dromaeosaurs were not actually entirely flightless!!! species too large to fly could have very likely been able to fly or glide as juveniles for several reasons!! and we already know some dinosaurs underwent big changes throughout their life stages so its really not out there

[sailoruranus-archive]

aw man lots of people still seem to not know that triceratops had quills on its back and tail!!!! quillz are cool draw the quills

[sailoruranus-archive]

you might laugh at a tyrannosaurus's little arms but thats not actually very fair considering their arms were actually very muscular

if you still feel like mocking them well take a look at a fuckin abelisaurid those things had pretty much useless arms

[sailoruranus-archive]

it actually makes a whole lot of sense that juvenile dromaeosaurs would have been able to fly or glide because like ???? deinonychosaurs grew slowly and lots of dinosaurs tended to change a lot between youth and adulthood and a lot of them seemed a lot more arboreal as young little dinos and they were apparently superprecocial and they would have of course been smaller

AND there is a general possibility for juveniles of animals to display traits their adult ancestors had

and of course basal deinonychosaurs were flying and gliding animals