Any idea why they'd keep or lose their feathers? Were they a help/hindrance at different times of life?

Sorry, and re: skin, the thinking is that bumpy skin is more like birdskin, and more likely to have feathers? My question was more why would you get a fossil record of feather bearing skin, but not feathers or a part of them instead?

Agreed that not all dinosaurs were scaly, I recently saw a great sample of dinoskin from the Zuul fossils (I'll try to post some pics in the Jurassic thread in gd if I remember), but there were skin types that didn't have feathers either, so I'm curious how the conclusion of 'this is skin that would likely have feathers'
is drawn. Because it has that texture similar to birdskin?

We might be getting off topic here, but for my own clarity, tetsudines split off from crocodilians before the time of the dinosaurs, presumably so did snakes and other lizards, and crocodilians descended from the same clade (I'm not going to lie, I'm really ignorant of the clade-based taxonomy) of reptilians as dinosaurs, and later, birds? It might be irrelevant, but is similarity to their ancestors at the 'split' a function of time, adaptive necessity/advantage, or a combination of these and other factors (that is, are crocodiles similar to birds vs turtles because their common ancestor was more recent, because crocodiles are effectively unchanged since dinosaur times, or for some other reason/reasons)?

 

Testudines split off from base reptiles before the group that includes crocodiles even existed. We're actually not sure of their connections because their morphology is so derived. Their genetics suggest their either a very ancient group OR a more recent but very isolated group, depending on the research. Then the earliest archosaurs and the earliest sauropsid ancestors (snakes and lizards) appeared as two separate lines from a common ancestor. The archosaurs eventually threw up crocodiles and dinosaurs, which includes birds. Sauropsids ploughed along on their own until the modern group lizards appeared I believe mid Jurassic. On a cladogram, crocs, birds, pterosaurs and dinosaurs form a unique branch called archosaurs, opposite that is sauropsids and below that is testudines

Plus the idea of crocodiles being unchanging is a bit of a myth. The earliest crocodiles were almost indistinguishable from dinosaurs. They even very likely had some kind of feather (they have an inactive feather gene). Warm blooded long leggy things. Crocodiles, right into the middle of the age of mammals, threw up a wide variety of forms. Modern crocodiles represent a single family which arose in the Jurassic and diverged in the Cretaceous. Hell alligators, gharials and crocs aren't actually very closely related within that family. They diverged over 70 million years ago.

 

And I said that we don't know with 100% accuracy so what's the problem? While a 1% chance that future scientist can ever prove the current theory wrong is unlikely it's not impossible which is what the debate was about so thanks for proving my point.

You could attach the legs backwards which would then make the knees bend backwards. With no instructions on the figure should be assembled... a lot of it is going to be guess work... and chances are you're going to assemble the thing wrong if you don't know exactly what it's suppose to look like.

Hell it's pretty common to see Transformers mistransformed even when you do have access to the instructions. You know how many pictures and reviews I've seen of WFC Optimus Prime where people never flipped his knees up covering that gap in the back of the vehicle mode and giving him tail lights... or even the reverse, leaving those panels up in robot mode. It seems like a pretty obvious thing but I constantly see that figure transformed wrong.

This is the first I've heard about having to break the tail to get it to stand that way. If that were the case then why did it take them so long to realize that was wrong? If you have to break something to make it work then it obviously isn't meant to work that way.

Also those displays aren't even real. They make a mold using the real fossils and then use that to manufacture the "bones" used for the display. They can't use the real ones on a display like that as it could potentially risk damaging the fossils. The keep the real ones preserved where they can be further studied. If you see a bone in a glass case that one is likely real but the big fully assembled skeletons on display out in the open is a replica.

I'm pointing this out because without the muscle tissue that normally holds the bones together you have to drill holes in the bones and assemble it on a wire frame. That process is why they won't risk using the real fossils to build these displays as even the replicas would some times break and have to be replaced. So basically what I'm asking is... are you sure they didn't break the bones just because of the process of building such a display and not intentionally to make them stand in an impossible way?

I'm a Beast Wars so I'm all for realistic alt modes... but Grimlock has never been a realistic T-Rex... Even in Beast Wars when we had Megatron with the same beast mode they instead decided to make Grimlock a Velociraptor for some reason. I can only assume it's because they wanted all the Dinobots to be Deluxe Sized figures and Megatron was an Ultra Class.

How is it more marketable? I've seen both vertical and horizontal and never really paid that much attention to it until this thread. I doubt kids would even notice or care. Besides it's not just Grimlock and kids are actually still growing up with both stances cause I still see toys and movies with T-Rexes that stand vertically. I'm pretty sure kids would just think that either one can be correct until they're specifically taught in school that horizontal is the commonly accepted correct way.

And as I said in a previous post... When making a G1 Grimlock he should be vertical. Modern interpretations like the movie, RID2015, Cyberverse, I'm totally OK with those being Horizontal. Or better yet... as I said in another post just make the beast mode possible enough so people can display their Grimlock either way. I think FoC Grimlock was able to do that where you could stand him in either position.

He's a robot dinosaur, so why should he be limited by what a real T-Rex could or couldn't do. Even if you could prove with 100% certainty that he should be horizontal we're still talking about a robot who only loosely resembles a T-Rex.

What we really should be talking about is Megatron's color scheme... While I don't know what a live T-Rex should look like I'm almost certain that purple is not a naturally occurring color like that. Even worse on Tarantulus when I know a tarantula should not be purple.

 

Neat. Thanks.

 

You gotta understand, most fossils we have are scraps. When we find whole fossils we can piece together, it pretty much always changes our view on said dinosaurs. In 1905, they restored T. rex based on what they thought other Therapods looked like, and then promptly couldn't look into it any more until the 60s when work started up again. We're looking at creatures dead over 66 million years at least, that died and have had their bodies shifted every which way, their bones dislocated by scavengers and time, and trying to put together what we can from the remains

While we don't have the actual muscle tissue, we do have muscle attachment sites and then there's dinosaurs we do have good fossils for, like the 'trachodon' (now Edmontosaurus) mummy. We've gotten better fossils over the year that tell us, yes, this is how dinosaurs stood. Take also for example the holotype for Baryonyx, which is the best preserved therapod from the UK and was only discovered in the 80s. Additionally the vast majority of T. rex skeletons we've found were since 1990. As time goes on, we get more fossils and more context for what we have

People also didn't have context back then. Like, for example, take good ol' Spinosaurus. Y'know spinosaurus, right? For years it was restored as 'Generic therapod plus spine'. Then we discovered Baryonyx, at which point its changed to giant Baryonyx with a sail, then there's the whole 'when is the actual paper coming out' with Ibrahim et al that's our current spinosaurus

 

Both

 

In Victorian times the assumption was that dinosaurs were a lizard and would function as a lizard. They were also to put it politely hilariously arrogant. There’s numerous examples for specimens of even modern animals being modified to look how a researcher, who has never seen one before, expects it to. Classic example is how dodos were portrayed as super fat. So they decided a dinosaur had to look like a big lumbering upright lizard and did to the skeleton what they had to to get it. Which created an image that didn’t get challenged till the 70s when dinosaurs resurged (for a lot of the 20tu century sciences didn’t really care tbh)

Depends on the specimen and institutions. Victorians generally displayed the real material and would mix in replicas for missing parts. Every museum has real specimens on display alongside replicas and you can always tell if a skeleton is a partial reconstruction by the textures. You can also attach using glue not drills. Again depends on the material. Not to mention the Victorians had noooo problem problem drilling or breaking fossils.

I'm pointing this out because without the muscle tissue that normally holds the bones together you have to drill holes in the bones and assemble it on a wire frame. That process is why they won't risk using the real fossils to build these displays

.

They did a study that showed that a lot of children don’t associate that shape with dinosaurs anymore and if they’re buying dinosaurs models they want something that looks like how they think they should look. So to them Grimlock is kinda more a thing that a T. rex. Plus he doesn’t have the big head, the right hands. He’s just kinda vaguely pointy. Particularly thinking on the potp

 

Even for a vertical standing T-Rex G1 Grimlock never had the correct proportions. His arms were obviously longer than what a real T-Rex would be but I always assumed they did that because he's a freaking robot and longer arms are more useful. What kids are they talking to that can't recognize that's a T-Rex.

 

T. rex is recognisable to children by having very short two fingered hands and a very broad powerful head. And the general stance. BAsically they take the Jurasic Park Rex and apply it to whatever they're looking at. Grimlock...really doesn't look particularly T. rexy outside of the Devil's Due comic, or FOC or IDW. He's more a monster to them than a representation of anything they can directly relate to a specific animal. He's just kinda a generic dinosaury reptiley generic thingie. Because children buying toys today have a cultural interpretation of T. rex which is a complete 180 of the one in the 80s. They've never really encountered that look outside of Godzilla.

 

Godzilla is different mostly because of the spines on his back. T-Rex has never been depicted that way.

Even the Giganotosaurus is commonly confused for a T-Rex because they have a really similar structure. Giganotosaurus is actually even bigger than the T-Rex and there are a few other differences as well but to a kid... same thing.

Only Beast Wars ever actually had realistic looking Beast Modes and even that only lasted for the first season. Literally everything else should be unrecognizable as any animal by this logic.

 

Funny how they were shown walking upright in the 80's. I have a book The Day Of The Dinosaur published in 1978 and even back then T-Rex was portrayed walking horizontal. They even have dinosaurs with feathers so these are certainly not discoveries of the 90's+. What children did they survey that couldn't tell Grimlock was based of a T-Rex? My 6 year old daughter calls my MP Grimlock a robot T-Rex(she let me borrow George for the picture). I voted vertical as I like that stance for the character.

 

I don't make the test, I just read them

 

If it's G1, vertical. Anything else, horizontal.

 

Vertical stance. Wheeljack built the Dinos based on his incomplete and inaccurate idea of what dinosaurs were.

Let me put it another way. You are told to make a robot based off a pika.

Your research is limited to television (no internet and going to the library is like being asked to find a special pebble in an ant hill). The only example you can find is a cartoon called Pokémon in which the main protagonist's pet is a Pikachu.

Close enough, right?

So you now have a robot that is probably 3 times too big, weird proportions and can conduct electricity as a weapon.

Is it a Pika? Yeah, I guess...as much as Godzilla is a T-Rex.

 

Grimlock is a construct made by a Cybertronian alien robot so it's OK if not 100% accurate. I'm quite sure the real T-Rexes weren't walking around saying me Grimlock king or shooting fire from their mouths either.

 

I know right! That's the same thing I was thinking.

I could maybe understand kids would have a preference for the horizontal T-Rex over the vertical one. That is a possibility. I kinda doubt they would really care that much but I could be wrong.

But the idea that they can't even recognize that something is a T-Rex just because it's standing the wrong way is completely ridiculous. Are kids incapable of recognizing that Bugs Bunny is a rabbit cause real rabbits don't stand upright? Are kids incapable of recognizing that Mickey Mouse is a mouse because mice don't stand upright? Why would a robot T-Rex need accurate proportions and stance to a real T-Rex to even be recognizable as a T-Rex? That makes no sense. If standing the wrong way makes it unrecognizable I don't think there's anything you could do that would actually make it recognizable without going the BW route and making his beast mode look organic. A robot should never be recognizable as a realistic T-Rex because there's nothing realistic about a metal T-Rex. Which way it's standing is the least of your concerns when the T-Rex looks like a giant metal spike monster... Which by the way is a perfect description of Movie Grimlock who does stand horizontal but doesn't really fit G1 Grimlock who isn't very spiky other than the claws on his hands and feet.

That person really should post a link to the study he was talking about. I'm thinking they may of exaggerated the facts if they're even accurate at all. Maybe I was wrong about the hole kids not really caring one way over the other thing. I think whatever survey he's talking about could prove me wrong there. But the idea that they're incapable of even recognizing that's a T-Rex, that's more than just personal preference. That's a bunch of kids with zero imagination and there's just no chance that's true.

That's like not being able to recognize Clark Kent and Superman are the same person.

Oh... and... doesn't MP Grimlock have the ability to stand like a modern T-Rex? I mean his proportions would still be wrong but I'm pretty sure you can pose him that way if you wanted to. I don't actually own the figure but I think I've seen him posed horizontally in pictures before. Or maybe that was a different Grimlock that could be posed either way and I'm just getting them confused.

 

Yes MP Grimlock can be posed to stand horizontal. The thighs are on large ball joints with a great range of motion. I pose him upright as a personal preference. I would think the general body/tail shape, head shape with sharp teeth, small arms, large legs with three toed clawed feet more than the stance would make it recognizable. Going to see if I can find that survey. would like to read it. I can only go by what children around me have said(my nephew who is 13 also said cool Rex hen he came over and saw it).

I didn't find the survey about kids not recognizing the upright T-Rex but did find this one from 2013 which seems to contradict it.

Sorry, Barney: T. rex did not stand upright despite popular misconception

 

I'd just like to say Grimlock having stupid, stumpy plantigrade legs also sucks shit.

 

Brontosaurus is now a new, different species of Sauropod. So if you want, you can still called Sludge a Brontosaurus and be scientifically accurate. The Brontosaurus Is Back

 

Because Wheeljack used the best reference he had available at the time?