What a lucky break for Chiappe et al -- there was no fossil evidence for it, which just means that as adults, they no longer had it. Heads he wins, tails you lose. :')Another Dino with ‘Feathers'Scientists opposed to the idea that birds descended from dinosaurs see otherwise. The filament impressions, says Larry Martin of the University of Kansas, are probably left behind by connective tissue fibers beneath the skin. "I think it's pretty clear they're not homologues of feathers," Martin says. "They have no features of feathers." Martin has argued that two other reported "feathered dinosaurs" — which clearly have modern-looking bird feathers — are actually flightless birds, not dinosaurs. Luis Chiappe of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County dismisses Martin's hypothesis that the impressions are merely tendons and ligaments. "The only ones having these types of things are the therapods," he says. "Is that a coincidence? I don't think so. These structures that most of us regard as protofeathers are showing up in a number of therapod lineages. I would bet they would also be in creatures like a T. rex." That feathers haven't been seen in any T. rex fossils doesn't mean Chiappe has already lost his bet. Stuff like skin, scales and feathers rarely fossilize, and, Currie says, if tyrannosaurs had feathers, they likely shed them as they grew into adults.
by Kenneth Chang
May 26 1999
Are they there yet?