@featheryraptor / featheryraptor.tumblr.com
Finally its time to show our Pachycephalosaurus! Being one of our four playable dinosaurs we really took our time designing this animal. We are very pleased to finally show him off and hope you guys enjoy it as much as we do.
This strip was of course inspired by the fact that from 92-95′ I was in fact the lead singer of an Indie Folk/Punk band called One-Hole Bird-Life.
Zhenyuanlong suni is a new dromaeosaur just recently described by Steve Brusatte and Lü Junchang and published in Nature’s Scientific Reports (it’s open-access!). This little fellow was about 6 feet (2 meters) long, about the size of its Velociraptor cousin, and was preserved with amazingly large and modern-looking vaned feathers on its arms and tail. Its wings are remarkably large and clearly show the same arrangement of primaries, secondaries and coverts common to modern birds. Some of these feathers even look somewhat asymmetrical, which in modern birds only exist for flying. So what on earth would a dromaeosaur this large be doing with wings like this, when it obviously couldn’t fly? Nest brooding, RPR, wing-assisted incline running are all possibilities, but the authors speculate that their most likely function was in display or signaling, either in courtship to impress mates, or to intimidate rivals. But all sorts of dinosaurs have been drawn displaying at rivals and females dozens of times, so I wanted to illustrate a somewhat unique idea inspired by my dad’s encounter with a cardinal last summer. This male cardinal would come to the same sliding glass door every day and try to attack his own reflection, beating his wings against the glass, pooping all over the porch and window, and generally being full of testosterone and ire. Glass and mirrors are unnatural and therefore it’s not too surprising that an animal could be confused by them, but water? Unlikely, but let me paint the scenario: This male Zhenyuanlong, when competing for a female, has just been forced to back down by a male with a better display. He’s feeling rather out of sorts. Hopping across some rocks in a river, he catches sight of that bright orange crest and those striking high-contrast shocks of black and white in his reflection. On some level he knows it’s not real, but seeing them just makes him so damn mad. Next thing he knows he’s fuzzed up in full display, seething with rage and crapping all over the place. He’ll show that bouncing light who’s boss!
So I saw a post asking about raptor social behavior, and it said that raptors are now not thought to be pack hunters. I have never heard this and I am curious of when this came to light and how.
Okay yeah it’s actually based on the fact that there isn’t much evidence for them being pack hunters in the first place
The only evidence we have is A) the fossils of Deinonychus associated with the Tenontosaurus and B) some fossil footprints that may be from raptors walking together in formation
Now the latter is actually pretty good evidence, but we only have one example of it, and if all raptors - and there were a lot of them - were pack hunters, we’d expect more evidence than just on track way.
As for the former, it is possible that they were hunting in a pack, however it is equally possible that they were associating for convenience - flocking and then hunting - or just all gathering around a carcass and scavenging on it.
Meanwhile, we don’t have a lot of other fossil evidence of raptors associating with each other.
The pack hunting hypothesis was mainly proposed by individuals such as Jack Horner (who, I will remind everyone, is the literal worst,) in order to emphasize how dinosaurs were not “cold booded dumb giants” during the Dinosaur Renaissance. It’s why it was depicted in Jurassic Park - he was the primary paleontology consultant on that movie - it’s all part of his schemes to change the public’s opinion of dinosaurs by using wild speculations in addition to new data to emphasize this paradigm shift. He’s done it, for example, with other animals, saying that Tyrannosaurus was without doubt a scavenger - even though that issue is still up for scientific debate.
He based this hypothesis on the assumption that raptors and modern-day wolves shared a similar ecological niche - and wolves pack hunt. However, there aren’t really any species of birds that pack hunt - and those animals are much more closely related to raptors and also could have had similar ecological niches (for example, vultures and birds of prey.) In fact, birds hardly ever form really purposeful groups together; rather, they flock together for convenience and do form mated pairs. It seems fairly unlikely that raptors would have shown completely different behaviors - given how closely related they are to birds - when there’s nearly no fossil evidence for it.
Additionally, raptors weren’t actually very fast - their legs were much too short to be so - and they couldn’t use their famous sickle-claws to slash at prey. Rather, they were designed to strategically strike at vulnerable places on a prey’s body - something that would be kind of hard to do in a pack. I mean, you’d all be aiming for the exact same spot.
I explain even more reasons why not (and provide sources) in my post about Velociraptor; additionally, you can look at my other raptor posts (anything on my page tagged “raptor”) for more information.
Hope this helps!
Horner has a wide back, hasn’t he?
True, these days I take his utterances outside of peer review with the appropriate amount of sodium chloride but I’d think it more forthcoming to name who actually started those notions about dromaeosaurid social hunting and leave someone admittedly roughshod when in the function of science communicator to his irrelevance in the matter. Here are the papers you alluded to:
Now on the first one you’ll note that it was Ostrom, the original author describing Deinonychus, who proposed social hunting for it. Further digressions of mine on the subject here. I think you’re confusing John R. Horner with Robert T. Bakker. The latter was the one who proposed the most far-fetched ideas within the Dinosaur Renaissance: you can read about one of them on print page 125 of the first scientific article. Horner at that time was busying himself with dinosaur nests, namely those of Maiasaura and Troodon (the latter initially misidentified as those of Orodromeus), so as a consultant for Jurassic Park he more than likely bridged the gap for the film crew regarding the then cutting edge of the scientific literature and mentioned interesting ideas for a cinematic context though perhaps not the most scientifically probable.
The Tyrannosaurus hunter vs. scavenger debate is a dead horse.
Artist Portfolio
Chuang Zhao is pretty much the artist who reconstructs the Chinese dinosaurs these days. His works have a vague semblance to the art of Luis Rey and Julius Csotonyi in their use of photocomposition to create colourful and ultrarealistic artwork. Recent reconstructions include Huanansaurus, Qianzhousaurus, and Ikrandraco.
Dino Dossier
Zhenyuanlong suni _is a new large basal microraptorian dromaeosaurid theropod from the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota of China. Its extensive preservation of feathers on various parts of its body, combined with a strange short-armed physique, reveal new insights about microraptorian evolution. The discovery of _Zhenyuanlong revives the debate of whether feathers evolved for flight or display, and increases homoplasy amongst Liaoning dromaeosaurs.
Reconstruction Critique
Mostly consisting of valid criticism I do share as well. Here are my two cents:
For that anon: the past doesn't give a fuck what you think looks cool, dinosaurs aren't gonna apologize amd rip their own feathers or fibers off.
The Great Grand Enfluffening is unstoppable. Praise the filament. Accept the feathers. Join Fluffism.
Science.
A large, short-armed, winged dromaeosaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Early Cretaceous of China and its implications for feather evolution
The now-iconic “stand down” scene from Jurassic World, with Blue, Charlie, and Delta portrayed here by some more-accurately sized Utahraptor ostrommaysorum.
Due to the overwhelmingly positive popular response to my first “Scientifically Accurate Jurassic World” piece (http://lexiconmegatherium.tumblr.com/post/122169580525/scientifically-accurate-jurassic-world-feat) I just couldn’t help doing a sequel (plus in researching it I fell down the wiki-wormhole of current paleontological research and got the major urge to draw some dinosaurs, just like when I was a kid!).
Lack of properly attached primary remiges aside, this is quite decent.
T-rex and Velociraptor
Wanted to try out some patterns based on modern birds of prey.
Because, in the Jurassic World aftermath, it’s always a good thing to remind ourselves raptors were actually feathered. This doodle is based on a photo of the set from the original Jurassic Park movie.
Free to reblog. Do no steal.
Jurassic Park is property of Universal
On March 31 the Swedish Museum Of Natural History opens a new exhibition called Fossils & Evolution. My part of this production was to provide illustrations of the animals in their natural environment. With permission from the museum, I’m releasing the material on my website. I couldn’t have done these images without the help from the following people at NRM:
For the full series, go here.
For information about the exhibition go here.
ft. two deinonychosaurs.
Another look of my Krentz 1:10 scale Troodon model kit. I really need to finish the base. #troodon #art #resin_model #model_kit #dinosaur #theropod #paleoart #paleontology #acrylic
Here’s a messy feathered raptor, i want to do more but my tablet pen is about to die i think.
