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Evidence Dinosaurs Are Like Giant Chicks 302

Posted by CmdrTaco from the we-all-read-jurassic-park dept.
ZeroExistenZ writes "timesonline reports the new "irrefutable" fossil evidence of dino's resembling "giant chicks" more then reptiles as formerly accepted. Gareth Dyke: "The way these creatures are depicted can no longer be considered scientifically accurate," he said. "All the evidence is that they looked more like birds than reptiles. Tyrannosaurs might have resembled giant chicks.""
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Evidence Dinosaurs Are Like Giant Chicks More

Evidence Dinosaurs Are Like Giant Chicks

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  • I, for one... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mattcurrie ( 192138 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @08:12AM (#13476327)
    I, for one, welcome our new Giant Chick overlords.

  • Damn... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Brandon K ( 888791 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @08:14AM (#13476337)
    So it looks like I wouldn't have been able to score with a dinosaur, either...

  • Ahh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 04, 2005 @08:14AM (#13476342)
    That's why snakes taste like chicken.

  • The way they *are* depicted? (Score:4, Informative)

    by dancingmad ( 128588 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @08:16AM (#13476352)
    What's up with Slashdot's science news these days? You guys are reporting the obvious as if it was late breaking news (ozone, parasites that control hosts, now this).

    The way these creatures are depicted can no longer be considered scientifically accurate

    Dinosaurs have been depicted as bird-like for at least the last 20 years. Even since the 90s, Jurassic Park (the original anyway) tapped noted palentologists to give the dinosaurs what was then a contemporary view of them - fast, warm blooded, very bird like. Many contemporary depictions of dinosaurs have them behaving in a birdlike manner or looking like birds (to the point of having rudimentary or even full fledged feathers).

    • Re:The way they *are* depicted? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      No feathers in Jurassic Park.
    • Hollywood movies are made to generate profit. They are usually not made to be very scientifically accurate. And in this case, it seems that even the scientists themselves aren't all that sure about what they're talking about.

      • Re:Hollywood movies are made to generate profit. (Score:5, Informative)

        by LnxAddct ( 679316 ) <sgk25@drexel.edu> on Sunday September 04, 2005 @09:45AM (#13476848)
        The way I've understood it, and the way I believe most have understood it for decades was that dinosaurs were originally reptilic but as time went on and the species diverged through evolution, a good chunk became somewhat primitively feathered. Here are 2 depicitions that I pulled off of wikipedia( 1 [wikipedia.org] and 2 [wikipedia.org]), but I mean this isn't news, the article is just talking about more recent dinosaurs rather then the oldest (we have fossils of the crocodilia from the late triassic period that nearly match today's crocodiles, implying that at least some were reptilic) and we already know that in the Jurassic period birds and dinoaurs with feather-like features started appearing around the same time that small mammals became abundant. This aritcle isn't news, its stating what is already known, or at the very most, taking what is known and claiming that it possibly applies to a few more dinosaurs.
        Regards,
        Steve
    • Sorry, but jurassic parks dinos look NOTHING like birds. They look exactly like the illustrations in books of the 60s... (only the raptors move fast... big deal)
      • A would consider a t-rex chasing a jeep at 35 miles an hour going pretty fast especialy since it was an actualy chase rather than like a croc's or an alligator putting on a quick short burst to take down prey.

        I've often suspected that the dinosaurs, especialy theropods were actualy a lot more colorful the we imagined, most birds are far form dull as are most snakes. Even in present day mammils preditor tend to be more colorfull than expected and their prey less so.

    • Obvious? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Sensible Clod ( 771142 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @09:38AM (#13476814) Homepage
      reporting the obvious

      Oh, well, now, I wouldn't say that. [discover.com]

      This article is from February 2003. The guy is an evolutionary biologist, but search for the word 'factory' and notice where this factory is rumored to exist. You guessed it, Liaoning Province.

      Very interesting read.

    • News?? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Savage-Rabbit ( 308260 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @09:44AM (#13476843)
      Dinosaurs have been depicted as bird-like for at least the last 20 years. Even since the 90s, Jurassic Park (the original anyway) tapped noted palentologists to give the dinosaurs what was then a contemporary view of them - fast, warm blooded, very bird like. Many contemporary depictions of dinosaurs have them behaving in a birdlike manner or looking like birds (to the point of having rudimentary or even full fledged feathers).

      True enough but the story cited in the /. report [timesonline.co.uk] is not about the general anatomical similarities between preditory dinosaurs and birds which is well documented. It is about the debait about the extent to which predatory diosaurs were feathered which has been debated. AFAIK (In no paleontologist my knowledge of these matter comes largely from documentaries and science journals) it has until now been assumed that feathering was limited to a numer of smaller raptor species. If it is indeed true that irrefutable evidence has been found that even the largest flesh eating dinosaurs such as T.Rex, Allosaurus etc... were feathered that is indeed news. I was not aware that this has been common knowledge for the last 20 years. I for one look forward to seeing that proto-T.Rex fossil, has anybody seen images of this specimen?

      • Re:News?? (Score:3, Informative)

        by flyingsquid ( 813711 )
        There are skin impressions associated with tyrannosaurs from Alberta and Mongolia, and they seem to show the same pebbly skin that's seen in the herbivorous dinosaurs. So there's no evidence of feathers in large tyrannosaurs. On the other hand, it's possible that either (a) they had feathers over part of the body only, or (b) the young tyrannosaurs had feathers, but the adults didn't (just as young ostriches have a much more extensive feather covering than the adults). The tiny, primitive tyrannosaurs known
    • Dinosaurs have been depicted as bird-like for at least the last 20 years.

      But not with feathers, which is what this scientist says was the case.

  • Oblig. (Score:5, Funny)

    by kv9 ( 697238 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @08:16AM (#13476353) Homepage
    Death by SNOO-SNOO!

  • but .. (Score:4, Informative)

    by eneville ( 745111 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @08:16AM (#13476361) Homepage
    Birds are well known to be descendants of dinosaurs. Interestingly, crocodiles were around with the dinosaurs too.
    • Birds are well known to be descendants of dinosaurs.

      Not necessarily. There is some evidence that birds co-existed with dinosaurs for a long time. It could be that birds and some dinosaurs have a common ancestor.

  • So.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 04, 2005 @08:17AM (#13476365)
    ...think twice when you plan on wearing that "no fat chicks" tee today.

  • Artist Rendering (Score:5, Funny)

    by Comatose51 ( 687974 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @08:17AM (#13476369) Homepage
    And here's an artist rendering [theage.com.au] of how they might have looked.

  • Real reason why Dinosaurs became excinct (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 04, 2005 @08:17AM (#13476370)
    Colonel Sanders!

    -Sj53

  • moody? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 04, 2005 @08:18AM (#13476375)
    What, were they all really moody or something?

  • Scientific discussion (Score:5, Funny)

    by Centurix ( 249778 ) <centurix@gmYEATSail.com minus poet> on Sunday September 04, 2005 @08:20AM (#13476388) Homepage
    "Upon discovering the new fossilised remains of this giant 50 foot high chick, we've decided to name it the Darylhannansaur"
  • we are getting closer to answering the "who came first, the chicken or the egg" question.

    • Re:I guess (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Drasil ( 580067 )
      A: The egg... it was a mutant egg layed by a prehistoric proto-chicken, but it hatched into the 1st chicken. Of course what we decide is a chicken and what is a prehistoric proto-chicken is up for debate.
      • Ahhh, but is a chicken egg an egg that is layed by a chicken, or an egg that a chicken hatches out of? Your answer is correct for the second case but not the first. One could argue for the first case given that unless you live on a farm the only chicken eggs you're ever going to see are unfertilized and aren't ever going to be hatching a chicken out of them.

        (And this is of course going with the assumption that the implied question is really "which came first, the chicken or the chicken egg?" Otherwise the

    • We've always known the answer was an egg. Reptiles and whatnot.

    • Re:I guess (Score:3, Funny)

      by Sancho ( 17056 )
      So the egg glances over to the chicken and sighs, "I guess we finally answered that question."
  • Mmmmmh - Giant chicks [imdb.com]
  • So, dinosaurs are just as unfathomable as 50-foot tall women?

    Just wondering...

  • Time travel (Score:3, Funny)

    by UnderDark ( 869922 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @08:32AM (#13476458)
    50 foot chickens eh?
    Anyone else thinking "barbeque"?

  • Just dont.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Snaller ( 147050 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @08:34AM (#13476477) Journal
    ...stand underneath when they lay an egg!

  • square got it right. (Score:5, Funny)

    by aircheck ( 661080 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @08:37AM (#13476492)
    So they're like chocobos then? Chocobos with sharp, pointy teeth.

  • Worst. Sentence. Ever. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Petter3 ( 532365 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @08:41AM (#13476511)
    timesonline reports the new "irrefutable" fossil evidence of dino's resembling
    "giant chicks" more then reptiles as formerly accepted.

    1. Capitalize.
    2. "dino's"?
    3. Then != Than
    4. I'd like to kill you for submitting this.
    • Agreed. It was the "then" that irked me. Such hideous grammar really cripples credibility. When I read something like this, my mind says "Dolt. Move along, nothing to see here."
    • imesonline reports the new "irrefutable" fossil evidence of dino's resembling
      "giant chicks" more then reptiles as formerly accepted ...
      2. "dino's"?.
      4. I'd like to kill you for submitting this.

      I like No. 4, but No. 2 is wrong -- dino's is most definitely correct. Gerunds require the possessive.

  • FF (Score:2, Insightful)

    by akhomerun ( 893103 )
    final fantasy fans rejoice as they find out that chocobos may in fact have existed.

  • Evidence (Score:3, Funny)

    by rijrunner ( 263757 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @08:49AM (#13476549)
    I always knew there was something sinister about this creature [pbskids.org]

  • Now how would they serve 1/2 of a 50' tall chick at Swiss Chalet?

    More seriously, maybe get that DNA and culture up some, let them range over Africa and harvest them for food. You might need a tank to hunt them, as I sure would not want to be out there with a spear or 12-gauge shotgun.

  • Ontology / Phylogeny (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fractal Dice ( 696349 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @09:03AM (#13476622) Journal

    There's an old saying: "Ontogeny recapitulated Phylogeny" (or, "baby/fetal X usually looks like X's evolutionary ancestor" - since it's easier for a mutation to successfully edit the adult form than the infant form without causing something else to break).

    So if dinosaurs and birds are related, one would expect there to be a lot of similarities to baby birds to down is not surprising. However, I'm not convinced about the immediate leap to a theory of multi-coloured down when chicks are usually mono-unicolour.

  • I can imagine.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Klowner ( 145731 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @09:20AM (#13476710) Homepage
    <CavemanBob> AAAAUgHHhhHHh! Why can't you just SHUT UP?
    <HugeChickRex> It was like, so hilarious! I hadn't realized I left that pizza there in there for a MONTH! *snort*
    <CavemanBob> AAaaghghu I make you extinct now!
  • started finding gizzard stones and wishbones in dinosaur remains.

    It you want to know what a T Rex was like, watch a crow walk across your lawn. Or look at a picture of a Cassowary.

  • Oh - the poor T.Rex (Score:5, Funny)

    by sbaker ( 47485 ) * on Sunday September 04, 2005 @09:24AM (#13476737) Homepage
    Oh the poor T.Rex...gone from being the most powerful and vicious creature imaginable - chasing down jeeps and eating lawyers and shaking the ground as it runs...then we hear that if it ran at more than 8 mph, it would fall over...then that if it ever did fall over, it couldn't get back up again...then they told us that it was merely a scavenger and not a hunter at all.

    AND NOW IT LOOKS LIKE A GIANT, FLUFFY YELLOW CHICK?!?

    Nooooo!

    T.Rex's had laser eyes, breathed fire and had enormous leathery batlike wings that don't show up in the fossil record because they were shed every year to grow new ones. They could run at 80mph and ate several Diploducus for breakfast every morning before having violent terratorial disputes that took up the rest of their days. At night they tracked down and ate cavemen. Their advanced (but brutal and inhumane) society dominated the earth for 20 million years and was only brought down by alien civilisations hurling giant flaming meteors at them from the safe distance of the Kyper belt.

    OK - maybe I lost a bit of scientific detachment there - but..*REALLY*.

  • Surprising at first.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by spikesahead ( 111032 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @09:28AM (#13476759)
    .. but once I started thinking about it it made a bit more sense in evolutionary terms.

    Scales! If dinosaurs evolved slowly from fish, why would the scales simply disappear without evolution even trying to figure out another use for them? It's not a gigantic logical leap to move from the idea of scales to the idea of feathers, they're both overlapping 'plates' attached at a single point, the only difference is the fine structure involved which may have started simply as land walking fish who's scales didn't hold together very well, leaving ribbons of scale that were at once more flexible and slightly more insulative.

    Brilliant! *beer time*

  • Alton Brown beat them to it... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by phillymjs ( 234426 ) <slashdot.stango@org> on Sunday September 04, 2005 @09:29AM (#13476760) Homepage Journal
    ...on the "Fry Hard 2" episode of Good Eats. [foodnetwork.com]

    He used one of these, [dinosaurcorporation.com] minus skull, tail and the bottom half of the legs, to demonstrate the proper way to dismantle a whole chicken for frying.

    ~Philly
  • My first thought was, "Hey Dino, does this make my butt look big?"

  • Ever seen chickens attack a bug? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HangingChad ( 677530 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @09:32AM (#13476777) Homepage
    If you've ever lived or worked on farm with chickens you've seen how relentless and brutal they are chasing insects. Even stinging insects like bees and wasps are no match for that lightning fast beak. Free range chickens are quick and intelligent hunters.

    Now imagine a 50 foot chicken...and you're the bug.

    • I thought chickens peck at anything bleeding too. Leading to a frenzy because the birds not bleeding sometimes get blood splashed on them, and other chickens attack those too, and it turns into a gross "last chicken standing" event which I don't think any of them survive.

      Not what I would call intelligent.

      Of course, this could be some other kind of farm-raised bird, my Grandpa raised a few different kinds of birds in the past decade or more.

      • Re:Ever seen chickens attack a bug? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Reziac ( 43301 ) * on Sunday September 04, 2005 @02:27PM (#13478498) Homepage Journal
        I dunno who told you that, but it's a trifle exaggerated.

        I used to have a flock of culls from someone who bred fighting cocks. These are about as mean as chickens get -- they are bred to be fearless and aggressive, especially with each other.

        Anyway, they are not attracted to blood per se, and don't pay any particular attention to it. What chickens WILL do if they don't get enough protein in their diet (as is common if chickens are fed grain alone), is peck at the feathers on each others' butts until their tails are raw and bloody. Feathers are high in proteins that chickens can digest; that's why feather meal is an ingredient in some chicken feeds, and why they try to eat 'em off each other when on inadequate diets. (Remember bugs are much of a chicken's normal diet, and bugs are VERY high in protein.)

        And sometimes the flock will gang up on a single half-grown chick and kill it, then string its entrails all over the place (trying to eat them, but guts don't break off like worms do so just wind up dragged around). This is normal culling behaviour in a lot of species -- if an individual shows weakness by going down during a minor spat, the whole flock or pack will gang up on it and kill it. (Dogs do the exact same thing, and even normally non-aggressive dogs will join in.)

        Chickens are hell on not only bugs, but also mice and snakes. Snakes will try to steal eggs (no, it's not a myth, I've seen 'em do it), and will go right into the nest to do so. More than once I got woke up in the middle of the night by a hen fighting with a too-bold snake.

        When I had chickens I never saw any rattlers. In the two years since the last of my chickens died off, I've killed 21 rattlers right in my yard.

    • Re:Ever seen chickens attack a bug? (Score:4, Funny)

      by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @03:44PM (#13478967)
      If you've ever lived or worked on farm with chickens you've seen how relentless and brutal they are chasing insects. Even stinging insects like bees and wasps are no match for that lightning fast beak. Free range chickens are quick and intelligent hunters.

      They're quite tribal, too. I mean, you're a mighty warrior hero with more Pieces of Heart than you can count, you wander into town and start slashing at a chicken just for fun, next thing you know there's an entire flock of them, they're all over the place and all attacking you and all you can do is run...

  • More information (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JayBlalock ( 635935 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @09:35AM (#13476800)
    Running a Google search on Liaoning dinosaur [google.com] brings up a number of useful articles.

    This one at the BBC [bbc.co.uk] discusses the find in more depth and also mentions that the feathers were primarily on smaller dinosaurs, but even our beloved T-Rex may have hatched cute li'l chicks.

    And this American Museum of Natural History [amnh.org] article discusses a diorama they're putting up based on the find, including pictures [amnh.org] of their conceptions of the dinosaurs today.

    Really, submitter could have contributed a lot more information with a little basic research.

  • I bags the drumstick.

  • In case you don't read the article. (Score:4, Informative)

    by beforewisdom ( 729725 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @10:11AM (#13476976)
    I know many slashdotters are busy people who often don't read every article. In case you haven't here is a quote from the article that you will not want to miss:
    The feather revelation follows a series of discoveries in fossil beds at Liaoning in northeast China where a volcanic eruption buried many dinosaurs alive. It also cut off the oxygen that would otherwise have rotted them away. Some theropod ("beast-footed") dinosaurs were preserved complete with feathery plumage. Theropod is the name given to predatory creatures that walked upright on two legs, balanced by a long tail. The feathered finds include an early tyrannosaur, a likely ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex, two small flying dinosaurs and five other predators. Feathers are thought to have evolved first to keep dinosaurs warm and only later as an aid to flight.
    In any event, I will always think of dinosaurs in terms of the cheesy special effects from that old 70's children's show "Land Of The Lost"
  • ..cos a number of chicks I've met turned out to be like giant dinosaurs...
  • ... doesn't this cast doubt on the scientific validity of "Jurassic Park"? And what about "The Lost World"?
  • Somehow a giant dinosaur, covered in Toucan styled plumage, just isn't as fearsome as you'd expect. In fact I'm imagining a hilarious Monty Python skit as I'm writing.

  • So? (Score:3, Funny)

    by JustNiz ( 692889 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @10:30AM (#13477104)
    I live in Georgia. There are still like millions of giant chicks here.

  • Spielberg renames movie (Score:5, Funny)

    by payndz ( 589033 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @10:37AM (#13477150)
    It's now Jurassic PA-KAAAWWK!
  • these dinosaurs had giant closets full of giant shoes??
  • Do you think they'll update the exhibits at Dinosaur Adventure Land [baltimoresun.com]?

    It's where Dinosaurs and the Bible meet! [dinosaurad...reland.com]
  • ... bring out the tar and feathers.

  • Countermanding theory (Score:4, Interesting)

    by blair1q ( 305137 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @11:37AM (#13477477) Journal
    This doesn't quite make sense.

    Once feathers evolved, it would be only a short time before their lifting qualities would enable the evolution of high-jumping then gliding then flying dinosaurs.

    There should be a huge number of fossils of a huge number of species of dinosaur-era birdlike creatures. But we only see a few.

    So these "feathers" couldn't have been very much like what we think of as feathers.

    Or else something about being avian kept those creatures from becoming fossils. Which implies that there may be other entire swaths of the genetic diversity that were prevented from becoming fossils. Which mean the dinosaurs we're finding are only the animals that couldn't avoid the tar-pits and eruptions and mudslides. That is, the period may have been many times more diverse and interesting than we're being allowed to see.

    • Re:Countermanding theory (Score:4, Informative)

      by lawpoop ( 604919 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @02:07PM (#13478367) Homepage Journal
      This makes plenty of sense. There's nothing inherent about feathers that make them flight promoters. Feathers have no 'lifiting quality'. These feathers were most likely insulation for a creature with thermoregulation, like fur on mammals. It was only later that feathers were co-opted into gliding aids and later lift creators.

      Note that on a flying bird, there are only a few feathers used in flight, on the wing and tail, and the rest are insulation (albeit aerodymanic insulation). Flightless fowl such as penguin and ostriches have still kept their feathers, which shows that they are useful for tasks other than flight.

    • Re:Countermanding theory (Score:5, Insightful)

      by realityfighter ( 811522 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @02:23PM (#13478472) Homepage
      Having feathers does not imply that one is able to fly. See, for example, the early offspring of every avian species; also penguins, emus, and the dearly departed dodo. Only a very small portion of the feathers on a bird's body are used for flight. The rest are used for insulation and waterproofing. It's probable that this was the advantage of feathers on these early reptiles.

      We know that feathers, scales, and fur are all made of the same materials and share other traits (for example, they all grow toward the back of the body). It is not surprising that baby birds appear fuzzy; down is essentially hair arranged in a branching formation. It's likely that the first "feathers" were very heavy and resembled scales more directly than what we call "feathers" today. These would not have any inherent lifting power, because a) they would be heavy enough to negate any possibility of manipulating airflow, mainly due to the fact that they would rely on a solid shaft, and b) they would be grown in place of regular scales, instead of protruding in a wing formation. Also, c) most dinosaurs would be too heavy to be lifted in the first place. Pterosaurs and birds share the flight adaptation of having hollow bones. How long do you think it took for that to develop?

      It is hardly a hop, skip, and a jump from having feathers to being able to soar across the prehistoric sky.

  • Boo (Score:3, Funny)

    by EEBaum ( 520514 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @12:21PM (#13477703) Homepage
    I'm telling you, he's not a dinosaur. He's a giant chicken! Why won't anyone believe me?
  • Had Taco bothered to post this story [sciencemag.org] which I've had in my Journal since June, this story would have been a nice addition to the historical evolution of dinosaurs to birds. Instead, (some) people are surprised at this finding.
  • Cool! Now all we have to do is contact our friend Billywitchdoctor.com to bring back the dinosaurs!

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