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Debunking trey the explainer
Topic Started: Oct 27 2017, 10:27 PM (2,856 Views)
Fazaner
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Glarn, I think you need calm down a little, both you and trey could be right, we simply don't know enough to conclude definitive answer. It seams that t-rex is as mysterious as it is famous.
On feather side we have philogenetics, feathered ancestry and distant relatives.
On scaly side we got small patches of scales(found on multiple related species), size and environmental heat on some known habitats.
Neither can disprove the other, and both can coexist in partly scaly, partly feathered reconstruction.
Fact that T-rex remains have been found from Texas to Canada makes issue even more complicated, as climate was very deferent depending on site.
My PERSONAL opinion is that feathering was dependent on climate, like in modern wolfs, lighter or nonexistent in hot dry environments, ticker and warmer in cold north, and in moderate conditions somewhere in between, light feather covering with scaly patches for cooling.
Until we get more information this stands for me.
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IIGSY
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GlarnSkeleDin
Oct 28 2017, 01:53 PM
The thing about that video was that it wasn't really a valid point so much as Trey whining about how National Geographic and the Smithsonian are 'awesomebro' media for reporting on this.


I've talked with quite a lot of paleontology buffs lately, and the way that they put it, feathers don't work to insulate: Instead, they act like a wall to trap internally produced heat, but not letting out environmental heat. Therefore, if the environment is hotter than the animal's internal temperature, they keep it 'cool'. However, they don't help with losing internally produced heat - they make it harder.

Furthermore, just because feathers don't work like hair doesn't mean that T-rex had them. It's not a magic wand that instantly fixes all heating issues. You're still dealing with an animal that outweighed a goddamn African elephant and inhabited a hot, swampy environment. Just look at other dinosaurs; as a general rule, literally every other lineage seems to lose integument as they grow. What makes tyrannosaurs so special?

Trey has long ago lost any validity he once had; what pisses me off is when people are posting that video, made by someone who has zero experience with paleontology or fossils and general and regularly makes mistakes on everything from perspective to biology to the concept of fiction itself, as if it's the perfect rebuttal to a peer-reviewed paper that was put together by actual, competent scientists.
What where some other mistakes trey made?
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Triassic_Terror
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If you've talked to these "Paleontology buffs" could you show us what they said? Maybe a citation to a couple papers? If you know so much let me see your degree and all the evidence saying why it didn't have feathers or smooth skin and just scales instead, please site some sources I'd be happy to read. Basal elephants had reduced hair because of a semi aquatic ancestor and large sized limited hair on them but look at Mammoths, they have direct evidence of hair. The ratite feathers vs the kangaroo fur study is also another thing that shows that feathers can control heat easier than hair. Not to mention how fragile feathers/hair is to preserve because of preservation bias, they can just as easily exist in between scales and not preserve in the fossil.
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Nyarlathotep
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This debate again? Well...

A lot of "evidence" for feathers in certain groups is pure extrapolation, such as T.rex, Therizinosaurus and Deinocheirus. Whether or not these animals did have feathers, the only "evidence" we have is that some of their (in some cases distant) relative's had them. But that logic told us that Spinosaurus had really long legs, and look how that turned out.

We thought T.rex was entirely scaly at one point, then we decided that Rex was partly if not fully feathered, based on Yutyrannus, despite the latter being far smaller and not that closely related. But all the evidence we have so far, however little of it there is indicates scales. And not just from the legs or underbelly but even more prominent places like the back.

Obviously this doesn't exclude feathers either in patches or in the sparse elephantine variety, but it takes wind out of the sails of the "put feathers on it" group. And we have absolutely zero evidence for non-coeluerosaur theropods having feathers of any kind (even tyrannosauroid feathers are very basal), and all the evidence we have points to extensive mosaic scales, especially with the Abelisaurs which had outright osteoderms even on the sides and upper side of the animal. Even the "quills" of Concavenator don't work anymore as they've been shown to be muscle outlines. It is true integument exists in some ornithischians like Kulindadromeus and a few basal ceratopsians, but again it's ambiguous whether or not it has the same origin as theropod feathers or is an independent keratin derived structure, as This paper suggests, as the structures may not necessarily be that similar. There's also Occam's razor to take into account. So it indeed seems there were plenty of scaly dinosaues even within theropods, never mind ornithischians and sauropods. Unless you try and do a Nash and handwave it as being random skin impressions made by rock which happen to look exactly like scales (and other stuff like walking tumours scavenging dromeosaurs and 18 tonne Adipose Rex).

That said, this doesn't mean feathers should be the dismissed off the bat for large theropods, merely we don't explicitly know either way for this taxon. It is true they do have some decent benefits for groups, and it wouldn't surprise me if like Witton suggested that young Rex had feather coats that were gradually shed to get around the body heat of an 8+ tonne adult.

And while I don't agree with Glarn's tone and dismissal of Trey via ad hominem so much, he does raise a point that integument reduces with size unless there's an exceptional reason such as a cold climate. Look how quickly Colombian mammoths lost their fur as a response to warmer habitat. As Mark Witton said, it's true that studies show feathers have better control of heat than fur, but they still have limits as well with regard to body mass. The point he is trying to make is we don't know right now if it was patch-feathered, elephant-feathered or totally scaly. Artistic liscense still applies with art of course, but we can't say one has the best evidence yet until more gaps are filled in.
Edited by Nyarlathotep, Oct 28 2017, 08:36 PM.
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IIGSY
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I personally think T rex was sparsely feathered with thin hair like quills similar to elephants
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Punga: A terraformed world with no vertebrates
Last one crawling: The last arthropod

ARTH-6810: A world without vertebrates (It's ded, but you can still read I guess)

Potential ideas-
Swamp world: A world covered in lakes, with the largest being caspian sized.
Nematozoic: After a mass extinction of ultimate proportions, a single species of nematode is the only surviving animal.
Tri-devonian: A devonian like ecosystem with holocene species on three different continents.

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Finncredibad
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I just don’t see why Tyranosaurus can’t have both scales and feathers. It obviously had both, so why do people still argue if it’s one or the other?
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ÐK
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Most people are sitting on the fence like that with their opinion, and yet it still somehow always manages to turn into a big rabble of the same old points and arugments anyway.
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Tartarus
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Pol-Tet-ergeist
Oct 28 2017, 06:29 PM
I just don’t see why Tyranosaurus can’t have both scales and feathers. It obviously had both
No, it is not "obvious" it had both. We still have no fossil evidence for so much as a single feather on Tyrannosaurus. While this does not rule out the possibility it had some feathers on it, it does show that we can only view this a possibility but not a certainty.


On how feathery or not these creatures were, I myself used to favour quite fluffy depictions, but with the increasing scale evidence I now think they could not have been all that feathery after all. Something like IIGS's view of sparse feathering with the elephant-like small quills seems quite probable to me, at least for now.
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Mao
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People are still bitching about this? it's just feathers. a shaggy coat is as likely as a bald coat at this point. Trey the explainer is the reason why i'm even interested in dinosaurs, and yes, he has made that video, which has many people not very happy (like you guys), but Trey actually cites his sources in his videos, if you can't tell.

also, the scales seem to look more similar to rhino skin or a plucked chicken rather than feathers. there's literally zero reason for it to evolve scales rather than just skin. It could have thin feathers, but the thin feather's on an ostrich's neck is probably a better analogue than an elephant.

I personally think it's integument was similar to an ostrich, having a shaggy torso, but having bald legs, and probably having thinner feathers on the neck, head, and tail. I also believe the "scales" are just skins. it doesn't seem to make much sense for it to evolve scales than just bald skin. the scales of birds and other dinosaurs are not very much like the scales of t rex.

It should also be mentioned, that making a dinosaur scaly, is the same amount of speculation as putting feathers on it. feathers, or atleast filamentous structures, seem to have been basal to dinosaurs, or pretty much ornithodirans in general.

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It's possible that maybe sauropods, like barn owls, had filaments between their scales. our closest analogue for dinosaurian scales are birds, which seem to show feathers in between scales. Hell, it's possible that feathers were on every dinosaurs. think about how many birds have feathers today. you'd think by now that we'd have atleast one bird with extensive scale coverings besides the feet and legs, but, we don't.

When it comes to my opinions on generally scaly dinosaurs having feathers, look no further than Plastospleen's paleoart

https://plastospleen.deviantart.com/art/Stegosaurus-667231713
https://plastospleen.deviantart.com/art/Eastern-Dawn-Trachodon-602765726


i'm sorry if I came off rude, but this discussion is past it's prime.
Edited by Mao, Oct 28 2017, 08:52 PM.
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An important, but often overlooked point I feel people need to consider in this debate is that feathers are not limited to thermoregulatory purposes. Feathers could be display structures, could serve to break up the silhouette of the animal, it might use them as a downy lining for nesting. If we look at feathers from the limited position as mere body covering, we devalue the other potential roles feathers could serve in the animal's life, and we fail some of the most important rules of speculative and practical evolutions.
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And we have absolutely zero evidence for non-coeluerosaur theropods having feathers of any kind
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Wonder what Trey thinks of this?
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Mao
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Oct 28 2017, 08:48 PM
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And we have absolutely zero evidence for non-coeluerosaur theropods having feathers of any kind
Sciurumimus my dude
Scuriumimus is a basal coelosaur.
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LittleLazyLass
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I looked at Trey's video and honestly I see next to nothing wrong with it. The cooling the animal thing is blown out of proportion (but this was a very commonly repeated thing before the stuff this year happened, I think largely tracing back to Matt Martynuik whether he meant it that way or not), and one diagram with Concavenator may be incorrect. Otherwise, he's right on prettymuch everything. Rexes with decently extensive dorsal feather coverings are perfectly on the table, the media was really stupid about it, there are some problems with the paper. Do I think Witton's post is above and beyond a the best take on the subject? Yes, but Trey's video isn't something godawful like people portray it as sometimes. On top of this:

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The thing about that video was that it wasn't really a valid point so much as Trey whining about how National Geographic and the Smithsonian are 'awesomebro' media for reporting on this.

He didn't really whine at all, quite the opposite that's you whining about him, probably out of bias against him.

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What makes tyrannosaurs so special?

Well, they were the only large carnivorous theropods within Coelurosauria. The ancestral integument condition for more primitive theropods has been largely ambiguous and remains so. But we knew for sure the ancestors of Tyrannosaurus were nearly completely feathered.

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Trey has long ago lost any validity he once had

You never provided any evidence any of his other videos have problems. Quite the contrary, some of his recent content like the 10,000 BC inaccuracies videos pretty good.

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made by someone who has zero experience with paleontology or fossils and general

I mean, neither does (just about?) anyone else on this forum. But we live in era where palaeo-fanatics can read stuff online and amass a respectable amount of knowledge. Certainly enough that their opinions can be warranted.

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and regularly makes mistakes on everything from perspective to biology

Does he though? Again, I feel this is blown way out of proportion a lot because he makes mistakes now and then.

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as if it's the perfect rebuttal to a peer-reviewed paper that was put together by actual, competent scientists.

Did he actually claim this? I mean, it's a six minute bloody summary video, I don't think he saw it as be-all-end-all. Not to mention that he right on his arguments against the paper anyway - you can't ignore valid points because of somebody's lack of qualifications.

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Whether or not these animals did have feathers, the only "evidence" we have is that some of their (in some cases distant) relative's had them.

I agree phylogenetic bracketing gets to much trust a lot of the time, but that doesn't mean it can be disregarded as a bad place to look. Like I said, ancestry is something that's very important for why an animal has x integument. It should be considered just like size or the environment are - it just so happens it's outnumbered here.

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But that logic told us that Spinosaurus had really long legs, and look how that turned out.

You mention occam's razor and that's exactly what happened here, yet you dismiss it?

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Obviously this doesn't exclude feathers either in patches or in the sparse elephantine variety, but it takes wind out of the sails of the "put feathers on it" group.

It's been mentioned again and again that feathers and scales are known to be able to co-exist, this doesn't take wind out of the sails of anything. Like I said, I think primarily scaly is more likely, but that's not because of the impressions, but merely things the discussion of the specimens made me consider.

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And we have absolutely zero evidence for non-coeluerosaur theropods having feathers of any kind

Mentioning ornithischians later in your post doesn't make up for ignoring them here.

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It is true integument exists in some ornithischians like Kulindadromeus and a few basal ceratopsians, but again it's ambiguous whether or not it has the same origin as theropod feathers or is an independent keratin derived structure, as This paper suggests, as the structures may not necessarily be that similar.

Prettymuch everyone I've talked with on the subject leans to it being more likely they're homologous, with fuzz going to the ancestral ornithodiran. It just makes way more sense than similar things evolving three times - any scaly things in-between are easily explaining as secondary loss. Of course we can't say this with certainly like many people did and continue to do, that's the real lesson from the whole Wyrex debacle, but the point stands.

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Unless you try and do a Nash and handwave it as being random skin impressions made by rock which happen to look exactly like scales

The reliable Andrea Cau has argued that the "scales" on Wyrex are purely taphonomical, it's definitely something that's on the table.

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there's literally zero reason for it to evolve scales rather than just skin.

Feathers turning into scale-like structures are where bird scales come from, so this is incorrect.

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An important, but often overlooked point I feel people need to consider in this debate is that feathers are not limited to thermoregulatory purposes. Feathers could be display structures, could serve to break up the silhouette of the animal, it might use them as a downy lining for nesting. If we look at feathers from the limited position as mere body covering, we devalue the other potential roles feathers could serve in the animal's life, and we fail some of the most important rules of speculative and practical evolutions.

This is definitely important (and if you want to talk about Gigantoraptor is becomes particularly relevant, it can't lose just up and lose its wings) but for Tyrannosaurus most of these things seem unlikely, as the head seems to have been the center of tyrannosaur sexiness, for example, and they didn't brood their eggs.

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Sciurumimus my dude

Generally the coelurosaur placement is considered more likely.
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Mao
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Mao
Oct 28 2017, 08:29 PM
People are still bitching about this? it's just feathers. a shaggy coat is as likely as a bald coat at this point. Trey the explainer is the reason why i'm even interested in dinosaurs, and yes, he has made that video, which has many people not very happy (like you guys), but Trey actually cites his sources in his videos, if you can't tell.

also, the scales seem to look more similar to rhino skin or a plucked chicken rather than feathers. there's literally zero reason for it to evolve scales rather than just skin. It could have thin feathers, but the thin feather's on an ostrich's neck is probably a better analogue than an elephant.

I personally think it's integument was similar to an ostrich, having a shaggy torso, but having bald legs, and probably having thinner feathers on the neck, head, and tail. I also believe the "scales" are just skins. it doesn't seem to make much sense for it to evolve scales than just bald skin. the scales of birds and other dinosaurs are not very much like the scales of t rex.

It should also be mentioned, that making a dinosaur scaly, is the same amount of speculation as putting feathers on it. feathers, or atleast filamentous structures, seem to have been basal to dinosaurs, or pretty much ornithodirans in general.

Posted Image

It's possible that maybe sauropods, like barn owls, had filaments between their scales. our closest analogue for dinosaurian scales are birds, which seem to show feathers in between scales. Hell, it's possible that feathers were on every dinosaurs. think about how many birds have feathers today. you'd think by now that we'd have atleast one bird with extensive scale coverings besides the feet and legs, but, we don't.

When it comes to my opinions on generally scaly dinosaurs having feathers, look no further than Plastospleen's paleoart

https://plastospleen.deviantart.com/art/Stegosaurus-667231713
https://plastospleen.deviantart.com/art/Eastern-Dawn-Trachodon-602765726


i'm sorry if I came off rude, but this discussion is past it's prime.
I can't wait to see the shitstorm I'll summon because of my reply...
As of my gender, I have every gender imaginable, some even inconceivable to your minds. I have every gender in the gender spectrum, as well as ones you cannot envision.
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