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LWPaleoArt In reply to AntonellisofbBender [2017-05-01 19:55:59 +0000 UTC]

Wow, thank you! I'm really glad that you think it's that accurate. That makes me happy to hear.

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AntonellisofbBender In reply to LWPaleoArt [2017-05-01 20:07:16 +0000 UTC]

do you want to check out my blender skills?

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LWPaleoArt In reply to Glavenychus [2017-05-01 19:55:35 +0000 UTC]

Thanks! Yeah, I wanted to go with a color scheme that was really different and stood out. I took inspiration from Stellar's sea eagles, the Crested Caracara, and the Pied Crow.

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Glavenychus In reply to LWPaleoArt [2017-05-03 03:05:32 +0000 UTC]

Nice choices, not what I was expecting! You also didn't give it any flippity-flappity skin, caruncles, or any of the sort. Any reason why?

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LWPaleoArt In reply to Glavenychus [2017-05-03 20:50:01 +0000 UTC]

I don't think every dinosaur necessarily had them. I also drew this long before I thought about adding those sorts of structures to my theropods.

I like a lot of variety in my reconstructions. Not everything will have wattles or caruncles, but of course some will, because it's an interesting possibility and I definitely think some dinosaurs had them. I have no idea which species really...I could see most any of them having it to some extent, but by statistical odds, I don't think *every* or (even half, dare I say?) would've had them.

I think there's pros and cons to every sort of integument. A dromaeosaurid with a bare, caruncled head is going to be a bit better adapted to vulture style feeding, i.e. digging the head into large carcasses. This sort of skin might also offer it protection from fights with other dromaes. But at the same time, you have birds like Giant Petrels that also feed messily and they still have feathered heads. They may have also had crests and such for social signaling and display instead of brightly colored skin. So I think it's really quite difficult to say for certain. I hope one day we'll find the fossil evidence that solves some of these questions!

For instance, my next submission is going to have three possible looks for the face of Australovenator wintonensis, each of which is based on different ideas about facial integument.

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Glavenychus In reply to LWPaleoArt [2017-05-03 21:24:23 +0000 UTC]

Ah I see. And no, I wouldn't give it to every dinosaur, especially spinosaurids, abelisaurids, or most ornithischians at most.

I definitely sure that most of them wouldn't have had them, maybe even half didn't. Avetheropoda probably had the most variation you'll get, though there may have been outliers. Possibly even in Ornithischian with some hadrosaurs & maybe ceratopsids.

True, which is why I wouldn't give something wattles or skin flaps if there is no reason to have it. There would have been animals that could've evolved these structures, yet they didn't maybe from no enough environmental/niche partitioning pressure or used other integumentary structures other than skin for nipping, face-biting, etc for. Or maybe they rarely partake in it or never done it at all. Case in point modern crocodilians & lizards. Hell even carnosaurs probably didn't do this behavior as often for all we know.

Oh, I'm excited! Something akin to "Three Shades of-"?

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LWPaleoArt In reply to Glavenychus [2017-05-06 23:44:09 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, I definitely agree with you there. We can also exclude such wattles and skin flaps on at least the anterior of the faces of Tyrannosaurids given Carr's paper. (People may disagree with me, and that's fine. I'm not saying lips are impossible on tyrannosaurids considering the paper, though. I just don't think they'd have much of a need for skin flaps, "whiskers" etc, if the hypothesis of this extensive crocodilian sensory-like network holds up.) But then, they could have had textured skin on their necks, or even some kind of wattle. Or perhaps they were relatively plain and had all of the color and texture concentrated on the regions that Carr hypothesizes.

Something else to consider is that "striking" does not always equal color or flamboyant structure. It can also be contrast- of pattern and texture. Surely there's a reason that the more "dull" looking birds and lizards can still have very striking and vivid patterns provided by a contrast of light and dark pigments.

So yeah, to me that sounds pretty plausible.

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Glavenychus In reply to LWPaleoArt [2017-05-07 04:58:58 +0000 UTC]

Oh that one was something. I know that vibrissae, extra skin structures, and all that are now almost absolute to hypersensitive cornfield skin/keratinous rugosity/"some scale texture". Caruncles may still be possible on only the eyes(similar to the tyrannosaur from *shudders* Dinosaur Island). But's that's only my own speculation :/. 

Exactly. For most diapsids, "striking" would be mostly subtle or just contrast. Very few lizards, some birds, and a few testudines have what we associate to "striking" colors. The rest are just dull or contrasting, especially in specific light spectrums(or for their case, how they perceive light in their eyes).

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LWPaleoArt In reply to Glavenychus [2017-05-25 23:27:04 +0000 UTC]

I thought the Tyrannosaur from that film was kinda neat, although I seriously doubt how possible the large caruncles over the eyes are as depicted in that film since Carr's paper. I think at the very least, the evidence for the large keratinous sheath / boss over the orbital region is pretty solid, so I don't think a wattle would have been present just to cover it up...although it could have been just around the eye itself, and rather small.

Good point, about how some animals may be vibrant only as perceived by others of their species.

Also this image makes me shudder:
nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transfor…

The eyes of Tyrannosaurus rex were completely forward facing, they wouldn't have looked off to the sides like this. =/

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Glavenychus In reply to LWPaleoArt [2017-05-27 13:01:23 +0000 UTC]

After seeing the image up close, yeah now I also doubt caruncles over the eyes without taking into account of the keratinous sheaths on the forehead and muzzle. Just gonna drop it from now on. 

Yeah I think some people do forget that both extant archosaurs can see color in varying degrees, so of course dinosaurs would've been the same. Even from the naked eye, we see only coarse blacks, simple greys, and cream & regular yellows on your Velociraptor, but when another one sees it, they instead see high saturated oranges(blacks), brighter light grey/cool whites(greys), to even secretive patterns on the yellows signify its maturity. Obviously this is speculation at best since I don't fully know what do birds see through their lenses nor do I know which non-avian dinosaurs can see that way, but because them and crocs can see color then so can their extinct relatives.

Ugh....now I regret mentioning it at all. It's not even that accurate to facial anatomy, let alone feathers, colors, and such. 

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LWPaleoArt In reply to TrilobiteCannibal [2017-04-30 02:39:31 +0000 UTC]

Thank you, I appreciate it!

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