bubblekirby

Okay, so for those of you who don't the know the forum I advertised earlier was started because a good chunk of the old forum was angry with the way it was being run. The gripes people had have since been resolved, and as such there is no need for the new forum. So if you're still interested in joining a community focused on speculative evolution, come join s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_E…, which is where we have all returned to. 

Hi there everyone,

If there are any readers of this journal entry interested in Speculative Evolution, I have an announcement for you. Some buddies and I are setting up a new forum made for speculative evolution buffs such as ourselves. You can find it here; w11.zetaboards.com/Speculative…. As you can no doubt tell the forum is still in it's infancy. Nonetheless we hope to create a vibrant community with a more informal feel to it than other similar sites out there. So if your interested, check us out! We have a section where guests can post, so you can test the waters before deciding if you want to join or not.

As I am pretty sure you are all aware, Tianyulong completely muddied the picture on the evolution of feathers. As many other deviantartists have shared their theories on the evolution of feathers I decided I would share my own guess...

I like many others believe that protofeathers are basal to Ornithodira. However I believe that they were originally intended for only one purpose; display. If I am correct than the first ornithodirans would have had just a few EBBFS (or whatever they are called) on their tail similar to Psittacosaurus but sparser. In at least three lineages (pterosaurs, coelurosaurs and heterodontosaurs) these display feathers convergently increased in number until they became a form of integrement. Meanwhile in most groups these display protofeathers became a turn off at some point and since they had no other purpose in these groups they were bred out leading to completely scaly dinosaurs such as stegosaurs, abelisaurs and sauropods.

So in summary;

-All species in lineages which used feathers for integrement would have them in some capacity on their bodies.
-Species which lost their feathers entirely had ancestors which only used them for display

I have been thinking about this project a lot lately and In my head it is an entirely different beast then it once was. As such I am moving the pieces associated with it into scraps and will have a redo of anurognathids up soon. Hope you all don't mind

Oh how I hate thy New Canaan, let me count the ways. (Yes I realize I metaphorically shat on Shakespear's grave when I wrote that line. But I can't remember exactly how it goes -_-)

1. New Canaan is as white as the first Home Alone movie
2. Every kid in the town (including me I admit) are snotty rich kids. This is because real estate here is so expensive no one lower than upper middle class can afford it
3. It is filled to the brim with pot-smoking jocks
4. The only video games people play are Call of Duty and Madden and any other video game is immediately labeled "GAY!"
5. There are some kids so ignorant that they think evolution is fake

Now don't get me wrong, It isn't all bad. Their are a couple really intelligent kids, there is a good pizza place and bullying is not tolerated here. But It gets on my nerves how many idiots their are.

My definition of Idiot: Someone who has the mental capacity to be smart and act smart but are too lazy or just plain don't care enough to do so (In other words people who have learning disabilities such as Down Syndrome don't count!)