Timeline: theropods

The fact that birds are dinosaurs is no longer a subject of scientific debate. Even before the meanwhile countless finds of feathers in theropods, there was clear evidence all along. The two-legged gait alone, with the corresponding configuration of the toes, represents a great continuity between birds and the earliest dinosaurs. The hand of all moderately derived theropods is also fundamentally bird-like in its reduction to three digits. So it certainly does not apply to all dinosaurs, but at least this Tyrannosaurus would have had a range of bird-like features, even though adult animals probably no longer had a downy plumage. It can only be speculated at present how long after hatching the large megalosaurs such as Torvosaurus wore their primitive, fur-like plumage . Representatives of the Paraves wore real feathers, either in dense vanes suitable for flight, as in this Archaeopteryx, or in a shaggier style, as reconstructed here for Deinonychus.

digital painting, 2024

Urweltmuseum GEOSKOP Burg Lichtenberg (Pfalz)