# Struthiomimus may have had Ritual Mating Feathers

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/struthiomimus-may-have-had-ritual-mating-feathers/638919>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [October 26, 2012, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/struthiomimus-may-have-had-ritual-mating-feathers/638919 "2012-10-26T12:07:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\
**Post date:** [October 26, 2012, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/struthiomimus-may-have-had-ritual-mating-feathers/638919/1 "2012-10-26T12:07:02Z")

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Heard this on NPR this morning:

> **[Dinosaurs may have evolved feathers for courtship](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22428-dinosaurs-may-have-evolved-feathers-for-courtship/)**
>
> Fossils of ostrich-like dinosaurs hint that vaned feathers, like those that birds use to fly, evolved for courtship in beasts that never got airborne

[http://jerseyboyhuntsdinosaurs.blogspot.com/2012/10/dinosaur-feathers-first-north-american.html?spref=tw](http://jerseyboyhuntsdinosaurs.blogspot.com/2012/10/dinosaur-feathers-first-north-american.html?spref=tw)

It’s a far cry from the lizard-skinned egg-stealers that showed up in my Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs as a kid. It’s now believed that the similar-looking Oviraptor was actually the parent of those ostensible _Protoceratops_ eggs they were thought to ve stealing.  
Both _The Land Before Time_ series and Disney’s _Dinosaur_ show similar Dinosaurs stealing eggs, although Dinosaur gets the feathered part right. I suppose the image is kinda hard to shake, and the animators probably grew up with the same books I did. Our understanding of dinosaurs has been changing pretty rapidly over the past few decades.

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**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\
**Post date:** [October 26, 2012, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/struthiomimus-may-have-had-ritual-mating-feathers/638919/2 "2012-10-26T12:10:04Z")

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> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> I suppose the image is kinda hard to shake, and the animators probably grew up with the same books I did.

The more of this kind of information comes out, the more I wish there was such a thing as a “time viewer”.