28 Aug 2018, 8:41 pm
DarthMetaKnight wrote:
Another dinosaur that I like is Hesperornis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesperornis
Hesperornis is often considered to be a bird. Even that Wikipedia article describes it as a bird. Despite this, scholarly sources (including the ones cited by Wikipedia) make it very clear that this animal was not part of crown group Aves. It was part of the stem leading to birds, though this does not make it a bird. People should call this creature a birdlike feathered dinosaur in my opinion. We only call this thing a bird because some people still don't want to see the evolutionary connection between bird and dinosaur. If we are going to call Hesperornis a bird, then we need a stricter and more scientifically rigorous definition of what is and is not a bird.
Anyways, Hesperornis was convergently similar to penguins. Even among feathered dinosaurs, there was tremendous diversity.
The Hesperornithes clade went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous, along with other non-bird dinosaurs. In other words, there were some dinosaurs that were very close to birds on the tree of life, but still didn't make the cut.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesperornis
Hesperornis is often considered to be a bird. Even that Wikipedia article describes it as a bird. Despite this, scholarly sources (including the ones cited by Wikipedia) make it very clear that this animal was not part of crown group Aves. It was part of the stem leading to birds, though this does not make it a bird. People should call this creature a birdlike feathered dinosaur in my opinion. We only call this thing a bird because some people still don't want to see the evolutionary connection between bird and dinosaur. If we are going to call Hesperornis a bird, then we need a stricter and more scientifically rigorous definition of what is and is not a bird.
Anyways, Hesperornis was convergently similar to penguins. Even among feathered dinosaurs, there was tremendous diversity.
The Hesperornithes clade went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous, along with other non-bird dinosaurs. In other words, there were some dinosaurs that were very close to birds on the tree of life, but still didn't make the cut.
That's a fav fossil of mine. Always thought of it as a bird. And it does seem to have been part of the rival branch of fully evolved birds (there were two, the modern birds all descend from one branch the other were quite modern looking but all died out) that outwardly looked like modern birds but had teeth in their bills. The creature does seem to have had vestigial wings. So it may have had flying ancestors, but dropped flight to specialize in aquatic living. If so then it could be said to be a "bird". But all birds,even living ones, are a subset of dinosaurs. It was discovered and classified before the modern notion of "birds-are-dinosaurs" came to be mainstream. So even if it is a bird its a dinosaur.
Anyway. It was a large human sized creature that probably looked like an overgrown loon, or grebe, or comorant (modern fresh water diving birds with long necks). Because it was feathered it must have been warm blooded and could probably survive in high latitudes such as ...Scotland. If a big human sized version of a loon with little teeth in its bills were to be seen today, perhaps in a lake like perhaps Loch Ness, it could easily be mistaken for the Loch Ness Monster. So that's was a pet theory of mine for awhile. That the monster is really a surviving population of Hesperonis.
28 Aug 2018, 9:01 pm
04 Mar 2019, 12:41 pm
Dear_one
Veteran
Joined: 2 Feb 2008
Age: 75
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,717
Location: Where the Great Plains meet the Northern Pines
05 Mar 2019, 8:15 pm
05 Mar 2019, 10:41 pm
09 Mar 2019, 8:13 am
WP's own Isabelle-Linton because she is a "Bronte- saurus".
20 Mar 2019, 11:39 pm
| Similar Topics | |
|---|---|
| A Man Stumbled Upon a 70 Million Dinosaur Fossil, But Kept |
05 Mar 2024, 3:30 am |
| Favorite place to nap? |
18 Mar 2024, 3:37 pm |
| Favorite Flower |
19 Mar 2024, 8:44 pm |
| Favorite food |
26 Mar 2024, 4:34 am |
