Try, if you can, picture a jurassic or cretaceous environment. Try to imagine you are a bird like Archeopteryx. You look down from the high rock you've scaled with your nifty little claws, and you scope out your environment... it's mating season. How do you send out a signal to a potential mate without going out in the open terrain, announcing your presence to every predator in the vicinity... like a modern day lion, a feat that T-Rex would have easily accomplished. But for a bird, it could be a death sentence. So you are forced to either stay in the water or stick with higher elevations -- cliffs and trees, or choose an area which you know is predator free (thanks to your highly evolved acute vision many birds are renown for), and T-Rex, incidentally is not. (I will explain this in detail in another post).
As a bird you need constant vigilance against predators. In that way, the warm-blooded characteristics of birds is what gave them an advantage over dinosaurs.
Warm-blooded animals have faster responses than other groups...
Thermoregulation
Erect Gate and built for speed
- Birds and mammals have fully erect posture, and are warm blooded (an erect posture, limbs directly under the body. This affects locomotion, allowing much more energy-efficient movement).
- To achieve high speed, a vertebrate would need to be warm blooded.
Large terrestrial animals, i.e., elephants, lions, tigers, bears, t. rexes, velociraptors, anteolope, deer, including birds of prey, i.e., those who feed on prairie mice and the like... tend to be colored in a manner which does not bring attention to themselves. Their colors are dull and acts as camouflage to blend in with their environment. (so much for the theory that Velociraptor would have "brightly colored feathers". So, the likelihood that terrestrial dinosaurs ever possessed brightly colored "protofuzz" is... highly unlikely. IN fact, according to the theory of Natural Selection, and Charles Darwin, bright colors would be a liability -- attracting not a mate, but a bigger predator than one's self and you would become their next meal.
Bright feathers for terrestrial dinosaurs? .. ha, well, there's a theory -- maybe that explains their extinction.
Maybe the mammalian ancestors of the dully-colored saber-tooth tiger, which would've been superior in speed, saw those rainbow-colored dinosaurs, and ate all of them.
The theory for "brightly colored feathers," in Charles Darwin's reasoning would have been nothing but a huge liability.
FEATHERS (EVOLUTIONARY PURPOSE):
•Feathers are the most distinctive feature of birds
•Extraordinary evolutionary invention
•Feathers are fundamental to many aspects of bird existence
– USES:
Insulation, aerodynamics, communication, camouflage
Typical Jurassic Environment
Hypothetical Cretaceous Environment
Typical example of desired camouflage in large predators and large prey.
And, if no mammals had reached the size of saber-tooth 70 million years ago? Great... then carnivorous and omnivorous dinosaurs ate each other. For large terrestrial creatures, bright colors would be
- A liability -- because most species benefit from camouflage. Especially predators.
- Unnecessary.
What evolutionary "natural" advantage would bright colors possibly serve, for large animals?
Please show me where "brightly colored feathers" would offer any "evolutionary advantage" for a large predator on land or in water?
TWENTY FIVE (Largest animals) and observe what color nature paints them.
The ONLY species mentioned in the list with "bright colors" was #20 a snake that reaches 5 meters. "...Chinese Rat Snake (Ptyas korros) Chinese Rat Snake (Ptyas korros) spotted in a tree 9/9/2009 on Tiger Head Mountain, Taoyuan, Taiwan."
"Brightly colored feathers" would be a liability to Velociraptor ... those bright red feathers were not at all thoroughly thought out before they spread that silly theory, far and wide.
It is a silly fantasy... not scientific at all.
100% of the species in that list, are dull colored, except the green snake -- which uses its color, to blend into its surroundings. (see photo).
Everything from the feathers to them being "brightly colored" is an un-Darwinian fairy tale folly. It contradicts every evidence in nature, and is in contradiction with everything Natural Selection tells us about "beneficial mutations are the ones that are passed on".
#1 Velociraptors would not need bright feathers to communicate to their potential mates which are in hiding, to signal their presence.
#2 Liability - alerting larger predators to their presence.
#3 Liability - alerting potential prey to their presence.
With feathers that bright, every snack in a mile wide radius would run for cover.
So maybe -- if dinosaurs had feathers -- this explains their extinction. They starved to death and were eaten by a predator larger than themself.
The next closest semi-colorful (not really) is the giraffe. Giraffes, collectively, spots confuse a predator.
Giraffe patches and body heat control
"Giraffe's patches are first and foremost for camouflage. But underneath each patch lies a very sophisticated system of blood vessels. Around each patch there is a quite a large blood vessel that then branches off into smaller vessels underneath the patch (see below)."
(Source)
"The spots on the bodies of giraffes offer them some protection in the wild. The camouflage from it blends in well with the African background.
Those spots can also be confusing to predators."
(Source)
Giraffes are not predators. They don't need to conceal themselves in such a way to stalk out an antelope for dinner. Velociraptor was a predator. Velociraptor would have depended on his color to blend in, nearly invisibly to his environment... if, he wanted to eat.
Color is a heavy liability says Darwin... and the dino-bird hypothesizers, so in love with their fairy tale, paint the large carnivorous Velociraptor (a top predator) with brightly colored feathers... so that it can alert every manner of prey in the valley to its presence.
THIS explains the dinosaur extinction!
On the Giraffe... as the only "brightly colored" creature that stood out in the list?
20 Amazing Examples of Animal Camouflage (Source)
Now, consider "bright red" T-Rex and its basis in science-fiction.
CAMOUFLAGE ON PREDATORS AND PREY
"...Bright coloration which seems opposite of camouflage, is it actually is used to warn animals to stay away. Brightly colored animals may be poisonous or have an unpleasant taste. Camouflage is an adaptation that is used both by predators and by prey. A predator uses it to sneak up on its victims. Stalking and sneaking up on prey is the only way some predators can get food. Prey animals have to use camouflage to hide from the predator."
(Source)
BRIGHT RED CAMOUFLAGE SAYS "SEE MY BIG TEETH, I WILL EAT YOU! STAY AWAY!!!"
Many animals accumulate toxin from their food rather than synthesizing it from scratch.
For example, the larvae of Monarch butterflies accumulate toxins from the plants they inhabit. Birds that eat the Monarchs vomit and learn to avoid them in the future. Their bright coloration allows birds to remember and avoid them.
1. Chemical Defense
Interestingly, many organisms which are distasteful advertise this fact to predators by having bright body colors or markings, as if to say, “Notice me! I’m dangerous!”
1. Chemical Defense
You can see this in the bright colors of the Monarch and the poison dart frog."
(Source)
More of those amazing "Camouflaged" ... true birds.
20 Amazing Examples of Animal Camouflage
(Source)
Why the gharial smiles.
Scientific Method: Empirical science entails a systematic approach to epistemology that uses observable, testable, repeatable, and falsifiable experimentation to understand how nature commonly behaves."
Predator preference for brightly colored males in the guppy: a viability cost for a sexually selected trait
"...Although conspicuous visual sexual signals, such as bright colors, in males serve to attract females in numerous species, they may also attract the attention of potential predators and thus may be costly in terms of increasing individual risk of mortality to predation. Most models of the evolution of extravagant male sexual traits and female preferences for them assume that the sexually preferred male trait is costly to produce and maintain. However, there is surprisingly little empirical evidence for direct fitness costs associated with sexually selected visual traits that enhance male mating success. In the present study, we report a direct fitness cost for sexually selected, bright body-color patterns in males in the form of an associated greater risk of mortality to predation. By using the guppy (Poecilia reticulata) and the blue acara cichlid fish (Aequidens pulcher) as a model prey–predator system, we demonstrate experimentally that individual cichlids preferentially and consistently approached, attacked, and captured the more brightly colored of two size-matched male guppies presented simultaneously in staged encounters. This resulted in the brightly colored male incurring, on average, a significantly higher risk of mortality given an encounter with the predator than with the drabber male in matched pairs. Our results constitute strong behavioral evidence for a direct viability cost associated with bright coloration in male guppies, and they corroborate the generally accepted paradigm that directional predation by visual fish predators against brightly colored, adult male guppies underlies the evolution of the known divergent color patterns in natural guppy populations that experience different intensities of predation..."
(Source)
It also may be assumed that "...A T-Rex was the top predator of its time, therefore he had no natural enemies."
Crocodiles: Biology, Husbandry and Diseases
By F. W. Huchzermeyer
IGOR has everything a self-respecting crocodile needs to be a good lover - he's big, he's strong and he's dashingly handsome.
But the 4.62m saltie doesn't seem to know the difference between love-making and dinner. He killed his last two girlfriends, according to a report in the Northern Territory News. And that was enough for the Darwin Crocodile Farm - Igor had to go. The 650kg saltie is being exiled to Sydney where he will be put on show for tourists at an aquarium. Croc handler Nick Robinson said: "I don't know why he attacked the girls. "But it does happen. It depends on the male's temperament." Igor was put in solitary confinement after his last murder. The saltie's history is unknown beyond that he has been at the crocodile farm for many years.
(Source)
Cannibal croc ... Eric the crocodile was snapped eating another reptile friend whole.
So now we know who was eating T-Rex.
(Source)
On occasion, this behavior affects birds as well,
"...Feather pecking can damage plumage and injure a bird's skin, and sometimes this behavior leads to cannibalism."
(Source)
Those bright red feathers which T. Rex did NOT have, unless... it is hypothesized that T. Rex was a vegetarian. Yeah, Vegan Rex. Now I sure get that!!!
As you see, they (the dinosaur-to-bird myth people) are like creationists. For T. Rex to have bright red feathers, you've got to ask which fruits and insects he based his diet on. T. Rex was a vegetarian and needed lots of carotenoid-rich fruits and insects so that during the next molt his feathers would grow in bright red. Dogwood, rose and Japanese honeysuckle berries are excellent sources.
And Creationists make a similar argument, that T. Rex was a vegetarian:
“One thing is for sure: the theropod dinosaurs were not created to eat meat. God created all creatures to eat plants, and he gave some of them sharp teeth so that they would be able to do so. Some of those particular mechanisms of different sorts, including teeth, may have changed after Adam’s sin so that such creatures could eat meat.”
(Source)
Well, *phew* that explains why T. Rex had red feathers. We can all sleep safe at night knowing we have the "truth".
"...Cardinals get the pigments responsible for red feathers from their food. Cardinals, tanagers and goldfinches can't synthesize carotenoids - the pigments responsible for red, orange and yellow feathers. If the birds don't eat enough carotenoid-rich fruits and insects, feathers that grow in during the next molt will be less colorful. Dogwood, rose and Japanese honeysuckle berries are locally abundant sources of carotenoid pigments. I don't know of any studies that measure how the quantity of carotenoids eaten by cardinals in the wild influences the brilliance of the red feathers that grow in when they molt. Redder birds might be expected to have more pigment molecules in their feathers. Captive cardinals fed a diet of seeds lacking carotenoids become a paler and paler red with each successive molt.
Tennessee's nesting cardinals usually stay in the same vicinity all year. It's possible the abundance of carotenoid-rich food in your neighborhood is related to how much red pigment is available to be deposited in new feathers when cardinals molt in late summer and fall.
We do know from studies that brighter red male cardinals have better breeding territories with denser vegetation. Brighter red males are also better parents. They do a better job bringing food to babies in the nest and are more successful parents. Their superior territories probably have more of the right cardinal foods.
Marcia Davis may be reached at 865-330-BIRD (2473).
Harvey Doerksen/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
To maintain their red color, male and female cardinals must eat foods containing carotenoid pigments. Many fruits and insects - but few seeds - contain the carotenoids that color a cardinal feather red. Carotenoids were named after the pigment in carrot roots."
(Source)
Ancient origins and multiple appearances of carotenoid-pigmented feathers in birds
"...The broad palette of feather colours displayed by birds serves diverse biological functions, including communication and camouflage. Fossil feathers provide evidence that some avian colours, like black and brown melanins, have existed for at least 160 million years (Myr), but no traces of bright carotenoid pigments in ancient feathers have been reported."
(Source)
A counter-argument to the claims of "dinosaur-feathers" which demonstrates they did not thoroughly think through their argument. They say "birds evolved from dinosaurs," right? Then why are birds the only creatures with actual feathers? If... IF... there were actual shared evolutionary feather development between birds and dinosaurs... then there should be abundant evidence of TRIASSIC dinosaurs bearing protofeathers during the TRIASSIC. But I've never heard that argument made. (Feathers are superimposed on dinosaurs from the Cretaceous which came after Archeopteryx.).
Archeopteryx already had feathers, yet, according to the dinosaur-to-bird hypothesis, the creteaceous dinosaurs were merely in the process of evolving "protofeathers"? Their argument defeats the presumption that birds evolved from dinosaurs, even as far back as the Triassic.
The best case scenerio for their argument, is possible "convergent evolution". That feathers developed on dinosaurs, separately and independently at different ages.
If birds shared feathers with dinosaur ancestors, it would set back that ancestor back, at least, into the Triassic (not Cretaceous T. Rex or Velociraptor) and there should be widespread and abundant evidence of feathers on dinosaurs by the time of the Cretaceous, but there are not.
This demonstrates these creatures were no where as closely related as the dino-bird hypothesis wishes to imply.
T. Rex was not interested in "pretty". It was attracted to the color red and would EAT it if it moved, which explains why in all likelihood the T. Rex was a dull camouflage (like 99% of other large predators) and relied on pheromones and bellowing to attract mates.
If T-Rex had feathers, fossils of those feathers would've been found long before now and *clearly* revealed as fully formed feathers.
Feathers (fully formed existed 165 million years ago). So, why are all T. Rex and Velociraptors missing them 80-65 million years ago.
Archeopteryx. It shows FULL feather impressions, claws on the wings, a long boney tail, and teeth.
In other words... feathers were not "in the process of evolving" by 165 million years ago. They were already formed, long before T-Rex and Velociraptor.
Modern Birds vs. Primitive Birds.
"...Fossil feathers provide evidence that some avian colours, like black and brown melanins, have existed for at least 160 million years (Myr), but no traces of bright carotenoid pigments in ancient feathers have been reported."
(Source)"
Vegan-Rex?
Special Care Requirement of the Red Factor Canary:
"In order to maintain their rich red plumage, red-factor canaries must be fed foods rich in beta-carotene, or a supplement of half pure beta-carotene and half pure canthaxanthin to maintain their best color. However, color feeding is really only required when new feathers are growing in, and this usually occurs when birds are molting."
(Source)
More on feather pigmentation:
Pigmentation
"Pigments are colored substances that can be found in both plants and animals. The coloration created by pigments is independent of the structure of the feather. Pigment colorization in birds comes from three different groups: melanins, carotenoids, and porphyrines."
(Source)
Bright Red Feathers "needed" for mating in T. Rex or other powerful predators?
If Crocodiles don't need bright colors to get it on, neither did T. Rexes. Crocodiles are quite solitary and a solitary-predator, don't care to "communicate" much (see below).
So much for "bright red feathers".
"...Breeding season in saltwater crocodiles usually begins in late August in captivity and up to a month later in the wild. During this time, the crocs, male and female both, become very aggressive and territorial. Females are sexually mature once they reach 2.2-2.5 meters of length or 10-12 years old, while the males are mature at 3.2 meters at 16 years old. The females protect areas a kilometer in diameter and drive out other females trying to nest in their area. They also drive out unwanted males. Males normally defend a much larger area. Other male adults are rarely tolerated once they enter these territories. Though they are very dangerous and highly aggressive, the males will try to avoid fighting. They put on elaborate shows of intimidation. They use a combination of different visual, acoustic, chemical, and mechanical signals.This includes tail waving, jaw opening, geysering, head lifting, musk gland secretions, vocalizations, and infrasonic pulses which travel through the ground or water. The dominant male raises their whole body out of the water, whereas the submissive male will raise their head up and vocalize. Two dominant males that meet will try to out-intimidate each other, but if it doesn't work, they will fight. The males use their heads to slam down on each other. The head is mainly reinforced bone, and can do great damage to another croc. The teeth also rip through flesh, bones are shattered, and teeth go flying. After this fighting is over, the winner gets rights to the nearby area, while the loser swims away in defeat."
(Source)
"...The mating dance involves almost all the senses. Males begin by bellowing above water, while producing low-frequency infrasound, which humans cannot hear. "You can feel the vibrations traveling through the water and you can even see pressure waves," Britton told LiveScience.
If in fact, the T-Rex was an "ambush hunter" as some suggest, bright red feathers would have prevented it from being effective.
"...The Nile crocodile is an opportunistic apex predator and a very aggressive species of crocodile that is capable of taking almost any animal within its range. They are generalists, taking a variety of prey. Their diet consists mostly of different species of fish, reptiles, birds and mammals. The Nile crocodile is an ambush predator and can wait for hours, days and even weeks for the suitable moment to attack. They are quite agile predators and wait for the opportunity for the prey item to come close within the range of attack. Even swift prey are not immune to attack."
(Source)
"...It’s good to see that the biggest natural history musuem in the world is ahead of the curve, and has its T. rex mount in a pose consistent with how other land vertebrates habitually hold their necks."
(Source)
"...Ambush predator : Ambushing prey is a tactic employed by a whole host of animals, from trapdoor spiders lurking in their burrows, to a cat stalking a mouse. If ambushers chase their prey at all, they do so for only a short time, as most of them are not capable of a prolonged pursuit. Instead they use cover so they can surprise unsuspecting prey."
(Source)
Those dino-bird hypothesizers would've made more sense had they painted T. Rex with giraffe spots or tiger stripes. Or a green like the color of the Chinese Rat Snake...
Much more convincing.
But they've never explained "why" the bright red feathers. Second, why feathers? What purpose? Flight to fly? Sea to swim?
The whole thing is in contradiction to Darwin's theory. Adaptations are not added unless they are beneficial to a species, so what benefit? For insulation to overheat the T-Rex (Source) in the warm Cretaceous climate?
(Crocodile Genome) may one day be cracked and deciphered. Maybe the "basal archosaur ancestor of birds" -- were the common ancestor shared with dinosaurs, so any so-called "protofeather" (whatever that is)... never mind. There were no "feathered dinosaurs" or the evidence would have been abundant during the Cretaceous, which was the close of the dinosaur era. Feathers everywhere! But there weren't. In birds, there is abundant fossil evidence of fully formed feathers.
Interesting article (dated December 2014). It states:
"...Crocodiles are the closest living relatives of the birds, sharing a common ancestor that lived around 240 million years ago and also gave rise to the dinosaurs."
They did not say, that the birds' closest relative (extinct or living) was T. Rex.
T. Rexes share only 58% similarity in the genome and that's NOT very high. And as we all know, crocodiles have not changed much over the past several 100 million years, so its practically the same DNA as it was, way back when Jurassic, Cretaceous and modern birds evolved separately apart from dinosaurs, but shared a common ancestor with dinosaurs.
"Their analysis indicates that the ancestor of all archosaurs probably had an extremely slow rate of molecular evolution, and that the rate of change sped up in the bird lineage. The rate of molecular evolution of crocodilians is an order of magnitude slower than that of mammals. The most likely reason for this relates to the relatively long time between generations in crocodilians, Green said."
They don't say, "Dinosaurs evolved into birds."
They say:
"The archosaur, or so-called “ruling reptile,” roamed Earth about 250 million years ago, and “was something that was very reptilian, very early-dinosaur-ish, and then it evolved into modern-day crocodiles and birds,” said David Haussler, Scientific Director of the UC Santa Cruz
Genomics Institute, a coauthor of several studies that came out of the avian genomics effort.
“So it really is the proper dinosaur ancestor,” Haussler said. “And birds and crocodiles are the proper descendants of this ancestor.”
(Source)
The fanatics of the hypothesis-myth, interpret data however they like, irregardless if the fossil record contradicts their hypothesis.
It would be nice to read reports about research, based on actual facts of genomes, not on wild speculation and theories that gave us "bright red feathers" on large predators.
When did "true dinosaurs" ..."theropod" dinosaurs... evolve:
"True dinosaurs first appear in the fossil record 225 million years ago."
"Theropods first appeared during the Carnian age of the late Triassic period 231.4 million years ago."
"Theropod dinosaurs are a diverse group that first appeared over 230 million ..."
"Dinosaurs first appeared about 230 million years ago."
So, birds share a common ancestor with dinosaurs, but the genetic evidence does not conclude birds "evolved from" dinosaurs.
Unless birds were around 250 million years ago, and birds diversified and evolved into dinosaurs around 25 million years later. That's entirely possible.. and convergent evolution explains everything else.
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