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Eurwentala In reply to 9Weegee [2017-12-20 15:08:41 +0000 UTC]

What do you mean scales between feathers?  I don't think I depicted any here, but even if I had...

Sure, I have read the claim that they might not have grown on top of each other due to developmental constraints. However, that's based on genetic study on animals that are hundreds of millions of years separated from ornithischian dinosaurs and don't actually have both feathers and scales anymore (birds) or possibly never did (crocodylians). Evolution happens. Living birds, for example, often have feathers sprouting from between the scale-like structures in their legs, though technically they are not scales, but derived feathers. We are basically using bird genetics to make claims about dinosaur appearance that can't even predict what the actual living ones look like. I'd take that with a big grain of salt.

Another thing is that Kulindradromeus actually has what seems to be feathers growing literally from the middle of a scale! It's unclear what the developmental story behind that is (are they actually feathers, scales, or neither), but the fossil quite clearly shows somewhat rectangular "scales", each sprouting a bunch of hair-like "feathers" from the middle. If that didn't look like scales between feathers, I don't know what does. You can see the photos on the paper here: palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Benton/r…

Even without either of these lines of argument, nothing prevents feathers and scales from growing in close proximity, but not between each other. Feathers, being rather long, would grow to partially cover the scales next to them, creating what looks like scales partially obscured by feathers and creating a smooth gradient, as you can see on the neck of my Heterodontosaurus here.

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9Weegee In reply to Eurwentala [2017-12-20 17:05:06 +0000 UTC]

Well said. Your comment needs to be recognized

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Eurwentala In reply to 9Weegee [2017-12-26 19:27:58 +0000 UTC]

Thanks! Maybe I'll write a blog post on this some day. I just need to reread all the relevant literature, which is no small task.

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