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Albertonykus β The Life of Maniraptors
Published: 2010-05-22 04:34:11 +0000 UTC; Views: 2556; Favourites: 18; Downloads: 36
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Description
A bunch of small pictures I drew to reflect various possible aspects of Mesozoic maniraptor life, based on the BBC series The Life of Birds by Sir David Attenborough.Clockwise from top center unless otherwise noted (none of these are to scale, by the way):
To Fly or Not to Fly - Archaeopteryx lithographica standing atop a rock with wings spread.
The Mastery of Flight - Avisaurus archibaldi taking flight.
The Insatiable Appetite - Jinfengopteryx elegans scratching about to uncover seeds and insects.
Meat Eaters - Saurornitholestes langstoni munching on the wing of an azhdarchid pterosaur carcass.
Fishing for a Living (bottom right corner) - Confuciusornis sanctus swooping over the water surface to catch fish.
Signals and Songs - Beipiaosaurus inexpectus warding off a Dilong paradoxus with a threat display.
Finding Partners - Male Similicaudipteryx yixianensis in mating ritual.
The Demands of the Egg - Troodon formosus brooding on its nest.
The Problems of Parenthood - Citipati osmolskae chomping on a deinonychosaur that got too close to its young.
The Limits of Endurance (center) - Vegavis iaai under the ashy skies of post K-Pg.
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Comments: 41
Could you do the same for a Mesozoication of Life Story?
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I could, but I don't know if I will.
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Do we know enough about Mesozoic mammals to parody The Life of Mammals?
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Potentially, though not all of the episodes would be replicated as easily. There are only a few Mesozoic mammals known to have been semi-aquatic (maybe none if one uses crown-Mammalia) and the last couple of episodes in the original series focused on primates, which were not present in the Mesozoic. "The Life of Pre-Cenozoic Synapsids" might provide more material, even if it would still require changing theme of some episodes (assuming we're keeping the length of the series constant).
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Wait, how old is Purgatorius?
Weren't pantolestans semiaquatic?
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Purgatorius is latest Cretaceous (at the oldest), but it is not definitely a crown-placental (and is certainly not a crown-primate). There were semi-aquatic pantolestans, though (contra Wikipedia) I'm not aware of any definite ones from the Mesozoic. Even if we gave them the benefit of the doubt, spending two episodes on Purgatorius and one solely on pantolestids seems excessive to me.
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If we use a more traditional definition of Mammalia (say, Adelobasileus + Sinoconodon + Homo), how many more aquatic mammals would that give us? Just Castorocauda?
Although not a primate, how sure are we that Deccanolestes isn't an archontan?
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Castorocauda and maybe Haldanodon would be the only definite ones. If one is willing to go down the tree a little further, a pretty good case could be made for Kayentatherium. Additionally, I neglected to mention previously with respect to crown-Mammalia that, considering that crown-monotremes appear to have been ancestrally semi-aquatic, there's a good chance that there were semi-aquatic Mesozoic prototherians as well, but it's difficult to verify that with most of them being known from fragmentary material.
Deccanolestes is another one of those taxa for which a crown-placental identity has not been definitively rejected, but is not secure either.
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Anyone up for a theropod documentary? Based heavily on The Velvet Claw:
1: The Feather Connection (overview)
2: The Outcasts (early theropods and coelophysids)
3: Bizarre Offshoots (ceratosaurs, abelisaurs, noasaurs and elaphrosaurs)
4: Rise of the Predators (megalosaurs)
5: Dominating the Rivers (spinosaurs)
6: Reign of the Hyperpredators (carnosaurs)
7: Small and Lithe (miscellanous coelurosaurs, compsognathids)
8: Giant Claws (megaraptorans, whatever they are)
9: Rags to Riches (tyrannosaurs and an emphasis on their lack of superiority)
10: The Bird Mimics (Ornithomimosaurs)
11: Extreme Arms (therizinosaurs, scansoriopterygids and albarezsaurs)
12: Beaked Wonders (oviraptorsaurs)
13: Large Brains, But Why? (troodontids)
14: Feathered Assassins (Dromaeosaurs)
15: Taking Flight (basal avialans)
16: The Opposite Birds (enanornithines)
17: Conquest of the Waters (herons, loons, penguins, pelicans, frigatebirds and tubenoses, finishing with Macronectes and its role as top predator)
18: Giant Browsers and Nightmare Genitals (anseriformes and relatives)
19: Death From Above (accipitrids, vulturids and teratorns)
20: On All Corners of the Earth (parrots and passerines)
21: The Reign Continues (phorusracids, seriemas and falconids)
Special: The Success of the Slicers (theropods with cutting bites and their 150-million year rule from the Late Jurassic to today)
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Nice. I wouldn't divide the episodes in quite the same way, but it's a good concept.
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How would you divide a theropod series then?
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1. Intro
2. Non-averostran theropods
3. Ceratosaurs, megalosauroids, and carnosaurs (for now I would include megaraptorans in this episode as well)
4. Tyrannosauroids and compsognathid-grade coelurosaurs
5. Non-paravian maniraptoriforms
6. Non-avebrevicaudan paravians
7. Non-neornithine avebrevicaudans
8. Non-neoavian neornithines
9. Strisorians, otidimorphs, and columbimorphs
10. Waterbirds and shorebirds (everything in Prum et al.'s Aequorlitornithes)
11. Non-australavian telluravians
12. Australavians
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I don't think that's enough divisions.
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Creating a documentary series of this nature with more than ten episodes is a stretch in itself (resource-wise, not information-wise), hence I deliberately aimed for concision.
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Do we know enough about Mesozoic birds & pterosaurs to make a Mesozoic Earthflight?
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I imagine it would be doable, especially if one were willing to include multiple time periods in one episode.
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How would you design a similar series about Mesozoic dinosaurs more generally? My structure (based loosely on Life in Cold Blood) would go something like this:
1. Rise of the Giants (the origin of dinosaurs)
2. Beaks & Cheeks (ornithopods & the origin of ornithischians)
3. Armored Dragons (thyreophorans & marginocephalians)
4. Reptilian Titans (sauropodomorphs & the origin of saurischians)
5. Perfect Predators (theropods, K/Pg & the avian legacy)
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Now that you speak of it, I have an old document in which I had written down my intended structure for such a series. This is what I had.
1. Destined to Rule* (Origin of dinosaurs)
2. The Knights of Old (Thyreophorans)
3. Plant Chompers (Ornithopods)
4. Using Their Heads (Marginocephalians)
5. The True Giants (Sauropodomorphs)
6. Flesh Eaters (Non-coelurosaur theropods)
7. The Fuzzy Royals* (Non-paravian coelurosaurs)
8. Taking Flight (Paravians)
*Were I to come up with this design now, I would not use these titles.
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I like it! Good luck containing theropods into just one episode though.
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Are there enough hypercarnivorous Mesozoic maniraptorans to devote an hour to them? There are dromaeosaurids, avisaurids⦠what else? Do any extant carnivorous bird groups have Mesozoic representatives?
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Bohaiornithids have been suggested to have been hypercarnivorous, but that's about it. Dromaeosaurids alone could take up a good chunk of time though. It's clear that there are some deficits when applying a show about modern birds directly to Mesozoic maniraptors. I'm more concerned that we don't know enough about the reproductive biology of Mesozoic maniraptors to have three episodes on it, for instance.
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Is there a consensus on what avialans more basal than Jeholornis ate?
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Like Archaeopteryx, Anchiornis, etc.? There certainly isn't any direct evidence and there haven't been many detailed analyses, but their general morphology suggests either omnivores or predators of small prey. The inferred diet of all the Archie-type taxa in Zanno and Makovicky (2011) were ambiguous, which the authors suggest reflects omnivory or something unusual, such as specialized insectivory.
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How well does that jibe with GSP's suggestion that Archaeopteryx was a specialized piscivore?
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Doesn't rule it out, at least.
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Hey man, nice. I just noticed the baby Citipati.
I have to agree with the previous comments: this would make an awesome documentary. *Throws "The Life of Megalosauroids" and "The Life of Mesozoic Marine Reptiles" scripts into garbage*
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Ah, don't do that. XD You can't tell the story of the Dinosauria/Mesozoic with only maniraptors.
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Can I keep my "The Life of Mesozoic Pseudosuchians" script?
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Of course.
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This would be the most awesome dino doc series ever (especially if Attenborough narrated it). If it were at all like "The Life of Birds", then my favorite episodes would be "To Fly or Not to Fly" (I'm especially interested in dino evolution) & "Meat Eaters" (Not only am I especially interested in dino behavior, but the real ME focuses on my favorite birds, so this ME would focus on my favorite non-avian dinos).
BTW, do you plan on updating this (I ask b/c of recent Citipati news)? If so, then I suggest doing so in the following way: For "The Demands of the Egg", have Citipati brooding on its nest; For "The Problems of Parenthood", have Troodon bringing Orodromeus to its young.
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As the deinonychosaur I drew for the Citipati image isn't intended to be Byronosaurus, I don't think it's necessary to update this at the moment.
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My bad. I thought that's what you were going for based on "No Eating in the Room".
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Nice. I love The Life of Birds. That isn't an old GSP style 'proto-beak' on Dilong there is it?
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Thanks. That's just rough, knobby and scaly skin.
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That's alright then
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Cool! Something like this would make an awesome "documentary comic" series.
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That would be interesting. It might make a decent "real" documentary, too, but that may be expecting too much.
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