I have hit a brick wall with Razi Saurornithoides. I need your help.
Which looks better? (Just looking at the "pelt" colour, and ignoring the current black and white display feathers)
1. The darker blue version
2. The lighter blue version
3. The Black version
4 comments:
Blue protofeathers might be iffy, so I'd go for the black.
Albertonykus- No hard feelings, but this comment gets my wraith of the day :P
Seriously its nothing personal, I'm just attacking ideas and philosophies that don't jive with me. Work and life has been really annoying lately. So I'm taking it out in intellectual dueling :P
What is your hard evidence or possible way of knowing blue is "iffy"? (I do get that blue is a rare colour in nature... but we're dealing with fossils here, and non-avian theropods proto-feathers are not exactly common)
Just keeping you honest my young up and coming palaeontologist. Never say never to the unknown in deep time.
Though to prove no hard feelings wait for my next modelling project next week. Might have to do with a certain contest "someone" won ages and ages ago...
Not ecologically iffy, but structurally. In general, it's produced by the structure of integument and not color pigments, and monofilaments (such as mammalian hair) can't do it. Blue iridescence as shown in fossil feathers tend to be restricted to the barbules.
But there's a catch, which is why I said "iffy" and not something more blatant such as "unlikely". The molecular structure of protofeathers would have been more similar to pennaceous feathers than to hair, and that's what's important in structural color. So there's some good wiggle space, but I was being conservative in my suggestion.
You pass the test young grasshopper.
Again it wasn't personal. I'm just not dealing well with "unknown absolutes" at the moment (it's a work thing).
You defended your position well, and admirably. I expect to be calling you Dr. Albertonykus by the end of the decade ;)
Though one can not entirely rule out blue protofeathers... I'm writing it off as sheen like in a Crow or Magpie, as it looks better than the pure black on photographs.
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