Tuesday, June 06, 2017

Featherless biped

Oops. T Rex skin seems cheerfully feather-free. Ditto other tyrannosaurs. They argue that large dinosaurs would, like large mammals, have lost any extra covering that might make them overheat. Or, maybe they never had any? Maybe the putative feathery ancestors were weird uncles and not grandfathers of the T Rex line.
None of the scales are as big as what you see on the back of a crocodile, but they are similar to the scales along a croc’s flank. I suppose tyrannosaur hide would make for a nice set of luggage.

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