DINOSAUR ATTACK

[melannen]

I have been getting really cranky about all sorts of minor things for the past week or so (maybe once the cramps let up it will improve?) ranging from why the lay/lie thing makes me angry to why Sherlock fans annoy me to evo-psych hate. I got out the Sherlock gripe on asexual_fandom, and we're probably all glad the essay on lay vs. lie is staying safely on my hard drive, but then there was this one, which I decided was best expressed as Dinosaur Comics fanart, see below:


ETA: This image is freely available to anyone who wants to repost or remix!

Because we have known about feathered dinosaurs for longer than I've been alive, we've known that nearly all theropods probably had some sort of feather-like structures for at least a decade, and yet young kids are still learning it the wrong way from new books, there is positively no excuse for people to be doing new illustrations of these creatures and ignoring that. It goes beyond 'Wrong on the Internet' to 'What Is Wrong With Humanity'? Grrr. Arrgh. Hisss. (And yes, Sue in the Dresden Files is part of the problem, though I can fanwank it that she was at least 90% a construct and shaped by what Harry expected her to look like.)

Transcript:

A standard "Dinosaur Comics" six-panel strip, with pixellated clip-art coelurosaurs conversing. Except that the dinosaurs all have feathers.

PANEL 1:
T. Rex: So I was re-reading my contract and it turns out that I was supposed to have feathers all along! SOMEBODY'S getting fired!

PANEL 2:
T. Rex: Fear my awesome pinions! I bet you feel silly about all those "tiny arms" comments now!

PANEL 3:
T. Rex: And all the other coelurosaurs had feathers too! That means you, Dromiceiomimus!
Dromicieomimus (covered in what looks like a dirty dust mop): These are NOT the right feathers.
T. Rex: Your name means "I look like an emu." Deal with it.

PANEL 4:
Utahraptor:You know, T-Rex, proto-feathers don't always mean mighty pinions.

PANEL 5:
T.Rex: They don't?
Utahraptor: Nope! If they're real, Tyrannosaurid feathers are likely hairy or fluffy, more like rheas or phorusracids or ostriches or other large flightless birds!

PANEL 6:
T.Rex: Or DROMICEIOMIMUS?
Dromiceiomimus (from off-panel): SHUT UP SHUT UP THESE ARE NOT MY FEATHERS
GOD (from off-panel): OH GO CRY EMU KID


SCIENCE NOTES:

1. T-Rex's feathers are based on the classic reconstructions of Archaeopteryx. Utahraptor's are based (loosely) on the Utahraptor illustration in Wikipedia. Dromiceiomimus's are based on ... well, on an emu.

Also, Utahraptor is correct in that a feathered Tyrannosaurus rex wouldn't actually look like that; the feathery dinosaurs that have been found in T.Rex's clade have much less feathery feathers. In fact, a lot of evolutionary biologists don't like using the term "feather" or "proto-feather" because it implies that the structures are part of some sort of inevitable chain leading up to the perfection of bird feathers, which is bad biology, but alas 'filamentous integumentary structures' wouldn't fit it the panels.

A lot of people believe that the largest coleurosaurs, like T.Rex, would have been scaly, like the old reconstructions; there are some Tyrannosaurus rex skin impressions that imply they were scaly at least in places, and by analogy with large mammals, they might have re-evolved nakedness separately. On the other hand, dinosaurs aren't mammals, so who knows? Especially if they were used primarily for social display, which is totally how T.Rex the character would use them.

I have no idea if Dromiceimimus is accurate as drawn here, but Dromiceiomimus does mean "looks like an emu", and that could be how she looked.


In other news, I was attacked by a dinosaur last weekend! I was lying in my tree, taking a nap, and listening to my mp3 player, when this dinosaur just swooped down at me from above, all feathery and stuff! It landed right next to me, and then jumped onto my chest and just sat there, right on me, and stared at me for awhile with its cold eyes.

I think it was one of these. Possibly simultaneously one of the most awesome and terrifying things that has ever happened to me. :D


In possibly related news: TetZoo is my current favorite blog. If only because, if someone as amazing as Darren Naish can get constantly distracted by shiny things and keep promising to do a certain post for years before he finally gets around to it, there's hope for people like me. Also, as witness my dinosaur attack earlier, I am ashamed to say I am really ignorant on common passerines. TetZoo almost manages to make them interesting.

(Here's Naish on feathered dinosaurs from 2007, already somewhat out of date but a good overview of the work coming out in the last decade.)

Comments

[calvinahobbes]

This is awesome! I have no words! *flails* Emu kid, lol forever XD

[melannen]

Thanks! :D

[whatistigerbalm]

I just wanted to tell you that all of this post is excellent.

[melannen]

Thanks! It's nice when several things come together into one post like that.

[fenellaevangela]

This is a great post. I love the comic and I love the commentary :-D

[melannen]

Thanks!

[synecdochic]

"Go cry, emu kid" is the best punchline ever.

[melannen]

...I was kind of surprised when I googled it and discovered that hardly anyone else had already used it. And most of the ones who had were talking about emulators or something. It's almost as if emu jokes aren't cool!

[synecdochic]

People have no taste!

[loligo]

That comic is an awesome thing of awesomeness.

[melannen]

As T.Rex would say: AWESOME!!!

[ajnabieh]

Don't lie. You set up that whole thing so DON'T CRY EMU KID would be the punchline.

(I may have to share your links with my son, who is Deeply In The Dinosaur Phase.)

[melannen]

Believe it or not, that was the last bit I came up with - it was "suck it up, emu girl," (and I didn't really like it) until the very last revision when I realized what the obvious punchline was.

You should share the links! And then take your son out for some fried dinosaur meat! (Maybe to the place in your icon. ^_^)

[starlady]

Ah ha ha, that is AWESOME. Though all the dinosaurs I know are fully feathered...

I hate the whole "proto-whatever" designation just about everywhere; it implies teleology where none exists.

[melannen]

Well, I don't know if anyone is yet claiming feathers for ornithscians or sauropods, but yeah, all the live dinosaurs I've met have been fully feathered! Except for the occasional turkey vulture, I guess.

Well, proto- technically just means "early" or "came before", and technically they *did* come before avians birds, but yeah, it would be nice if there were a better term. Other than 'filamentous integumentary structures'. I had a biogeography professor who would automatically fail you for the essay/paper if you at any point personified the forces of evolution, or implied that they had a goal or a purpose or an ability to plan ahead. Possibly that was going too far, though, because English just really likes personifying things, and doesn't mean anything by it most of the time (and modern cladists still seem to be okay with talking about "primitive" and "basal" features and lineages, even if it's not quite with the standard English definitions.)

[dejla]

Love the cartoon!!

And how amazing to have a tufted titmouse land on you! That's wonderful!

I wonder if T Rex might not have had something like peacock tail feathers on his fore 'arms'? Those would be awesome for display.

[melannen]

There is a theory that a lot of theropods used forearm feathers for exactly that! Maybe even as a sort of semaphore! And it seems like it might be a reason to keep the tiny arms, if they had fifteen-food flags attached. But apparently the lagerstatte where they're getting all the awesome feathered fossils from doesn't have many tyrannosaurids in it. Sadly.

[dejla]

Obviously I need to brush up on my dinosaurs. I knew about the birds/feathers thing, but most of the rest of my knowledge is from the seventies...

[holyschist]

Holy crap, best Dinosaur Comics fanart EVER.

I think the most recent assessment I've seen for T. rex--and I don't follow closely because dinosaurs largely bore me--suggests that babies may have had feather-structures, but probably not adults.

Dinosaur attacks are terrifying! People wonder why parrots freak me out. It's because they are FLYING DINOSAURS with CLAWS that like to LAND ON YOUR HEAD.

[melannen]

That's pretty much what I saw when I was doing a quick check while working on the post, although the reasoning seemed to be pretty much a) elephants have no fur, and b) we really don't want T.Rex to turn out to be a giant chicken. So, I dunno, I would certainly buy that they had some large feathery things, if only for display.

Of course, I happen to agree with you that modern dinosaurs are also terrifying. I'm okay with the ones that are small enough that I could theoretically wring their necks without risking fatal injury (except when they're swooping on me from above and I nearly have a heart attack, obvs) but once they get large enough to be able to disembowel, break limbs, or bite through an artery? Like, say, Canada Geese THEY ATTACK IN PACKS OMG RUN FOR YOUR LIVES....

[holyschist]

*g* Yeah, I think of the so-scary Velociraptor as a homicidal turkey...and, well, turkeys are scary! Why not? I could definitely buy T. rex having display feathers (my secret hope is that they--or some other dino--had inflatable gular sacs, ideally to make booming noises like mating sage grouse). I really want a dinosaur movie where the dinosaurs have all kinds of feathers and interesting behaviors extrapolated from birds...and eat people anyway.

(I love birds. But I don't like them ON me, augh. And geese are terrifying, although Canada Geese less so than domestic ones.)

[azurelunatic]

LOOK IT'S A MODERN DINOSAUR WHO IS NOT EATING ME!

And giant chickens would be amazingly terrifying if you were bug-sized in comparison. Miss Aurora here was death to flies, and stole scones from her sister.

[melannen]

Clearly it is just biding its time!

...I don't actually hate birds or have a phobia of them or everything, it's just that I'm well aware that even a flock of chickens could do me serious damage if they wanted to. And they tend to move fast and unpredictably.

And most birds are very good at angry stares, I have noticed, most of them can even outdo cats at that.

[skywaterblue]

+1 for the best dinosaurs had feathers rant ever.

[melannen]

Thanks!

[stultiloquentia]

This is...this is WONDERFUL. Heeeee!

Also I like your titmouse story. That the punchline is "tufted titmouse" makes it even better. :)

I had a tree for napping in, growing up. I miss it.

[melannen]

This maple was either too big or too small for me to really get comfortable in when I was a kid, but we have sort of grown into each other, I think, and I have rediscovered the fun of it. (There was a giant Douglas fir in my grandfather's yard I used to crawl up into when I was little, instead.)

[lastscorpion]

LOL! Brilliant!

[melannen]

Thanks!

[zlabya]

"GO CRY EMU KID"!!!!!!!
::is stunned by your awesome brilliant punniness::

Your fantext is perfectly Dinosaur Comics.

I bow profoundly to the amazing pangeekiness of this post.

[melannen]

Writing Dinosaur Comics fantext is helped by the fact that it's basically how we talk when my friends are together. :D

[lady_ganesh]

EMU KID

Ilu.

[melannen]

I like that everyone is focusing on the bad pun that I threw in at the last minute!

This is awesome

[(Anonymous)]

And I took your invitation to use the images!

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?butiwouldratherbereading=somethingmorehistoricallyaccurate

-Ryan
qwantz.com

Re: This is awesome

[anatsuno]

:D :D :D

Re: This is awesome

[melannen]

OMG this is amazing! Way more than I dreamed of when I threw this out there.

Thank you so much for bowing to my whims and altering history for the sake of SCIENCE, instead of smiting me with your mighty powers. :D

[(Anonymous)]

I was linked here via Ryan North's twitter, but I am ashamed to say that what still delights me most about this post is the mention of evo-psych hate *scurries back to the social psychologist corner*

[melannen]

*solidarity fistbump*

... I was just reading a random humor page, and suddenly they were all "Because men like sex but women just want a provider hurr hurr!" and I wanted to smash things.

...maybe I need to do some Feminist Hulk fanart next.

[(Anonymous)]

I have been getting really cranky about all sorts of minor things for the past week or so (maybe once the cramps let up it will improve?) ranging from why the lay/lie thing makes me angry to why Sherlock fans annoy me to evo-psych hate TO THE WAY THE LINE ACCOMPANYING GOD'S SPEECH IN A DINOSAUR COMICS FAN-COMIC DOESN'T EXIT THROUGH THE TOP OF THE PANEL.

[melannen]

I was going to say "obviously it's a fancomic, that means they have been loaned out to a different (and less High) God" (which was my actual excuse at the time of creation for calling it an artistic choice instead of being too lazy to rearrange the panel layout).

But then I did go back and find some God comics, and turns out God didn't always speak through the top of the panel, especially when replying to someone else! So I didn't need the excuse in the first place!

[aquaeri]

Here because I enjoyed your post on complex relationship structures for fanfic'ing, and we seem to have a few overlapping interests including a problem with evolpsych :-).

There's a recent Nat Geo I'm just reading now (Feb 2011) suggesting that even crocodillians have some of the genes for 'filamentous integumentary structures', so they could predate all dinosaurs.

Have you ever been face to face with an emu? We used to visit Tidbinbilla Nature park near Canberra, and emus can just wander around, including the area with picnic tables and electric hotplates. Once, an emu snatched a chop or something straight off the hotplate while we had our backs turned, and so we spent the rest of the time cooking staring them down (which fortunately is doable, but it's disconcerting when a bird is exact eye height with you).

Now cassowaries I've only ever seen inside enclosures and I completely understand why. They look really mean, and just seem more dinosaur-ish to me.

[xenakis]

There is nothing not awesome about this.

Like, seriously. GOLD. GOLD WITH TINY GOLD FEATHERS ON IT.