Indeed. I take no credit - I just saw that picture ages ago and this thread made me remember it.
Oh, absolutely. And these feathers don’t prove anything - the reasoning would be circular (we think they’re dinosaur because they’re primitive - therefore dinosaurs had feathers!)
There’s pretty darned good evidence for feathered dinosaurs, that’s been coming out of mostly China, in the raptor/R. Rex vein (bipedal carnivores) of the cretaceous - like tons of feather casts around dinosaur skeletons.
But certainly not all dinosaurs. I don’t think there’s ever been evidence for the large sauropods being feathered, or the ceratopsians.
That is pretty cool. My son (I call him The Boy) is 4 and is right at that spot where kids really get into dinosaurs. He calls Utahraptors “Terrible Claws” and knows that Saltopus means “Jumping foot.”
I got him a couple of dinosaur books and was suprised to see many of them actually had feathers – according to the theories, of course. I knew there was a link between birds and dinos, but this is an amazing discovery.
I don’t have pet birds but have been chased by both geese and swans with I WILL KILL YOU in their evil little beady eyes. I have no problem with a dinosaur/bird connection!
This reminds me of a cute story in the book Wesley the Owl, which is the true story of a biologist who raises a baby owl. When the owl was still tiny and not very feathered, the biologist took him to the grocery store, stuffed into her sweater with just his head hanging out (if I’m remembering correctly). She’s approached by a woman in the store who says, “Is that a dinosaur?”