PSA: be more creative with your marine reptiles!

Many of you probably heard about how we know the color of many extinct animals from looking at fossilized pigments. Usually feathered creatures like Microraptor, Sinosauropteryx, and Anchiornis.

However, we also know the coloration of a couple of marine reptiles, as mentioned in this article. Mosasaurs were countershaded, light on top and dark on the bottom. Ichthyosaurs, on the other hand, were dark all over, like a sperm whale.

This study implies that mosasaurs were mostly surface hunters, while ichthyosaurs hunted in deeper and darker depths. (The fact that many ichthyosaurs, like Ophthalmosaurus, had large eyes for seeing in the dark supports this even more.)

But modern marine animals come in more varieties of color than that!

Yes, the countershading and dark all over colors are certainly common in modern day cetaceans...but they also have many variations on those colors as well.

For instance, look at the yellow patches on this common dolphin.

There's also the striking and distinctive spotted dolphin.

And even cetaceans that DO use countershading are often times creative with it. Like orca whales, for instance. Who can forget that famous white patch over their eye?

And then there's the interesting colors pinnipeds come in, with variations of brown, gray, black, and white with spots and stripes. I especially like the pattern on this ringed seal.

And who said we have to stick to mammals?

The animal most famous for using countershading would have to be the penguins. But the only species that has the typical boring "black and white" color without any interesting patterns is the Adelie penguin.

Emperor and king penguins are famous for that orange pattern on their necks.

Chinstrap penguins are named for that distinctive stripe on their chin, and Gentoo penguins have very noticeable white eyebrows. Almost all of the tropical penguin species such as Humboldt, Galapagos, and African penguins have patterns on their bellies. And the little blue penguin from Australia is famous for its blue-gray coloration instead of the typical black.

And even the few surviving marine reptiles come in interesting colors! Look at sea snakes. The most famous species is the yellow-bellied sea snake, so-named for its...well, yellow belly.

And sea kraits are known for those black bands on their bodies.

Mosasaurs are related to snakes. Hint hint.

So, what does this mean for our marine reptiles?

From looking at modern day marine animals, we can be certain that, while the typical countershaded or black all over individuals aren't uncommon, many species are much more creative than that.

So, tell me I'm not the only one who wants to see a yellow plesiosaur, or a striped ichthyosaur, or a pink pliosaur, or a spotted mosasaur.

Have fun, paleoartists!

Debunking DaBrandonSphere's theories

Hello, nonexistent followers! I said I wouldn't be posting for a while, but this has been bothering me for so long that I had to make a post about it.

Okay, so there's a DA user named DaBrandonSphere, who just seems to not like feathered tyrannosaurs, despite all the evidence supporting it. The evidence is talked about in this informative (albeit long) video by Trey the Explainer.

Anyways, Brandon drew no less than three drawings based on his obviously biased and unsupported theories about how tyrannosaurs were featherless. I am going to be talking about each of these drawings and why his theories hold little to no water.

Keep in mind that this is not an attack against Brandon. He is a very good artist (his drawings look like something out of a comic book), and I'm sure he's a very nice person in real life. If any of my zero followers attacks him in the comments, I will be very angry. What I'm trying to do is explain why his theories just plain don't work.

Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, let's begin.

Scuted Tyrannosaurus rex

Source

First, we have this drawing of the famous tyrant lizard king with a coat of scutes on his head and neck instead of feathers. Why? Well, according to the artist...

I recall reading somewhere that scutes on crocodiles and bird feet may have actually evolved from primitive feathers as shown by developmental biology research. This makes me wonder if certain dinosaur lineages now commonly depicted as fuzzy, such as the tyrannosaurs, might have instead evolved scutes in place of the ancestral plumage. And you got to admit, the armor that scutes would provide for a T. rex would make more sense than the receding, vestigial coat of fuzz drawn all over the place these days.

That is a somewhat reasonable theory, hence why it's first on the list. Technically speaking, this user isn't "wrong". However, there is nothing to support this, and here's why.

As mentioned in Trey's video, we have preserved scales on the feet and tails of tyrannosaurs, but not on the areas that feathers would've covered in life. (Like the head and body.) You'd think if tyrannosaurs had scutes in those areas, which preserve better than feathers do, we'd get at least some impressions there.

Once again, not a completely terrible theory, but it's not supported by any evidence compared to the idea of them being feathered.

Yutyrannus's temporary winter coat

Source

Alright, so what does the user have to say about this one?

Yutyrannus is that big feathered tyrannosauroid that was all the rage a couple of years ago, but what if its plumage was only seasonal? It did live in a temperate climate similar to that of modern Ohio, which can get hot during summer.

To be fair, the artist admits that this is more of a "what if" than a serious hypothesis. But I still gotta call this one out.

Trey mentioned in the video that feathers are known to preserve heat better than fur does. So there's no reason for Yutyrannus to molt it's integument.

And the artist admits one more point that really debunks this idea.

To be sure, even if any dinosaur ever did molt its feathers seasonally, they wouldn't leave behind the usual scales. Scales are integument by themselves and so would take up space occupied by the feathers.

So, what would protect the dinosaur's sensitive skin on its back from the sun's harmful UV rays if there's no feathers to protect it?

Yeah...this one doesn't hold up. Next one.

And finally...Blubbery Nanuqsaurus

Source

Ho boy...here we go.

So, everyone agrees that, due to being an Alaskan dinosaur, Nanuqsaurus would've had some kind of shaggy feathery coat to protect it from the cold. Everyone except Brandon. According to him...

Conventional wisdom maintains that dinosaurs evolved feathers for insulation in cold weather. That would make sense except that there are animals out there whose insulation doesn't actually do much against cold weather. For instance, polar bears' fur actually provides little insulation and functions more like camouflage. It's their thick layers of fat that protect their bodies from the cold. For this reason I chose to give my Nanuq a lot of body fat instead of the feathers that have become fashionable even for derived tyrannosaurids.

Okay, where do I even begin?

Let's start with the fact that, despite Nanuqsaurus's name meaning "polar bear lizard", polar bears are a terrible comparison for any tyrannosaurid. Why? Because polar bears are semiaquatic. In fact, the only animals that lose their fur in favor of blubber for warmth are aquatic or semiaquatic creatures like cetaceans and pinnipeds.

Nanuqsaurus shows no signs of being semi-aquatic. No tyrannosaur does, so there's no reason to assume Nanuqsaurus was any different. The only large aquatic theropods out there are spinosaurids, which are as far removed from tyrannosaurs as you can get while still being tetanuran theropods.

In conclusion

Once again, this is not meant to be an attack against Brandon. This is just meant to point out how flawed his theories are. He is obviously biased and uses very little to back up his theories, and the few he does are obviously illogical and poorly-researched.

If any of you zero readers would like to post comments adding to this discussion, please do so. Thanks for reading!

Infrasonic tyrannosaurs?

A lot of you dino fans may or may not have read that recent article talking about how closed mouth communication has evolved multiple times in archosaurs, and may have been present in at least a few dinosaur species. (As opposed to the roaring dinosaurs you see all the time in movies.) But which specific ones?

Well, I think I may have figured out the answer in the form of the most famous dinosaur of all.

Credit goes to Wikipedia

Tyrannosaurus rex.

Or, at the very least, his less-famous Asian brother, Tarbosaurus.

Credit goes to T-PEKC

What a lot of people don't know about this guy is that he was discovered to have a big patch of skin on his lower jaw. (Can't find any official papers on it, but it's been talked about a bunch. You can read about it here.) And considering how similar Tarbosaurus is to Tyrannosaurus (to the extent that they were once considered synonyms, though there are a few differences in the skull structure), it's very likely T. rex had something similar.

That patch is usually interpreted to be some sort of odd-looking wattle, like that of a turkey or frigatebird, used for display or heat reduction.

That is a possible theory, but it's not the one I'm going to go with.

Visual or auditory function

If it's for communication, I think it's very likely that only the males had them. That's how many modern animals work, after all.

Anyways, the reason I find the visual function less plausible is simply because I don't see the practicality in a great big throat wattle in a creature that mostly fights using its jaws and teeth. Wouldn't that wattle get shredded?

Anyways, I think it's more likely that patch of skin was used for amplifying sound for either breeding or territorial purposes.

The first animals you probably think of upon hearing this are frogs.

Or, to a lesser extent, siamang gibbons.

But this ability also occurs in archosaurs, most notably in these extremely loud alligators.

So, I believe that the most plausible depiction of a Tyrannosaurus roaring occurs in the amazing-looking upcoming video game Saurian.

I personally think the mouth shouldn't be opened that wide, but I love the detail put on the way the Rex's throat is vibrating.

So, did the slightly smaller and more primitive tyrannosaurs like Albertosaurus and Daspletosaurus have throat sacs as well? Possibly, though I imagine them being smaller and less powerful than that of Tyrannosaurus and Tarbosaurus.

Now, onto the infrasonic part

Infrasound, for those unaware, is any sound lower than the human ear can pick up. It is a surprisingly common source of communication in large animals, such as elephants, whales, giraffes, rhinos, hippos, crocodilians, and tigers.

Given how common infrasound is in modern animals, it would be odd if no dinosaurs communicated in infrasound as well, and tyrannosaurs in particular seem like the kind of dinosaur that would, with the above-mentioned adaptations.

Now, infrasound has an interesting effect on humans. Even though we can't hear it directly, we can still feel it. It causes us to feel massive amounts of dread and, in extreme cases, hallucinations. It's even thought to be the cause of ghost sightings.

Animals also react this way, and for good reason. Infrasound is not only produced by predatory animals like the aforementioned tigers and alligators, but natural disasters such as volcanos, earthquakes, and tsunamis. (Anyone remember the story of the elephants who panicked before the tsunami hit?)

So, all of those prey items tyrannosaurs ate, such as dromaeosaurs, ornithomimids, ceratopsians, and hadrosaurs, probably could sense infrasound just like modern animals can. This would've helped them whenever a nearby Tyrannosaurus was trying to call for a mate or scare off a rival. 

Of course, a predator would never make loud noises while hunting, lest it worry about scaring away its prey. But the ability to sense infrasound would definitely help these prey dinosaurs know whenever there was a tyrannosaur in the area, and would allow them to be more cautious when on the move, just in case the big predatory dinosaur was feeling hungry.

So, any thoughts on my hypothesis? Please comment if you have anything to add!

Pteranodon = pure piscivore?

Our first post will be about the most iconic of the amazing pterosaurs, and one of the most iconic extinct animals of all: Pteranodon.

Credit goes to Matt Martyniuk from Wikipedia

With its distinctive head crest, Pteranodon is no doubt what most people think of when they hear the phrase "pterodactyl". It has appeared multiple times in pop culture as a person-eater that grabs humans in its eagle-like talons and carries them to its nest to feed to its peeping chicks in a birdlike nest. (This is the depiction they chose for the Jurassic Park franchise.)

Bonus points if it's depicted with teeth, despite its name translating to "toothless wing".

There are many things wrong with these depictions. (If you're a paleofan like me, you may already know all this.) For starters, it could not eat anything as large as a full-grown human. And it's common knowledge in our circles that pterosaurs' feet were not made for grasping, but for walking on solid surfaces. Also, it was discovered that pterosaurs were capable of flight shortly after hatching, so there goes the "feeding chicks in a birdlike nest" trope. (Though I'm thinking about making a separate post about possible pterosaur parental care in the future.)

Studies on Pteranodon show it to be more similar to a pelican or a gannet than an eagle. It even had partially webbed feet to help it swim. Many parts of its anatomy show a creature capable of plunge-diving beneath the waves to search for food such as fish and ammonites. (The one thing Jurassic World got right about its Pteranodons, besides the females having smaller crests.)

But back to the pelican comparison

Yes, indeed, this is starting to sound very much like a pelican. It's even sometimes depicted with a throat pouch like one. (Which we don't have direct evidence of, but it's entirely possible.)

Hey, do you wanna know sometime about pelicans? They don't just eat fish. Remember this infamous video?

This is not an isolated incident. Sometimes pelicans just get bored of fish, so they go for more...interesting prey. Even if it means flying inland to find it.

This makes me wonder if Pteranodon would once in a while get tired of fish and ammonites and decide to feed on something else, like small mammals and dinosaurs. Need I remind you that this guy got pretty big?

Credit goes to Matt Martyniuk from Wikipedia

Even though it's not big enough to eat a human, the male is plenty big enough to swallow a small baby dinosaur, especially if he had the aforementioned throat pouch.

Even if the JP depictions are inaccurate, the real Pteranodon still could've been a terrifying creature in its own right. I wonder if anyone's ever had this idea as well, and if anyone's ever drawn a Pteranodon eating a baby dromaeosaur or something similar.

Please note that this is not to suggest that tetrapods were a regular part of its diet. What I'm saying is that modern seabirds have a more varied diet than fish and cephalopods, and there's no reason to assume that wasn't the same with piscivorous pterosaurs.

So, any thoughts on this hypothesis?

Introduction

Hello, fellow paleofans and welcome to Pelagornis's thoughts!

Yeah, this is one of those typical paleoblogs. But here I'll be posting my own personal theories, including stuff I'm surprised no one's proposed before.

And yes, this isn't just a dinosaur blog. I'll also be writing about the amazing pterosaurs and marine reptiles. And I won't just be limited to the Mesozoic, I'll also be talking about the creatures from the Paleozoic and Cenozoic as well.

I'm also greatly interested in cartoons and animation, so I may make posts about that kind of stuff as well.

Please note that I'm not a very good artist, so I won't be posting drawings of my own here. But I may get permission from various artists to use their work.

So, hope you guys enjoy!