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Published: 2009-10-05 00:33:22 +0000 UTC; Views: 279; Favourites: 4; Downloads: 3
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Description
Scan of my upcoming Confuciusornis dui illustration. Soon she'll be whole again, as I tragically ran out of room in my notebook and had to continue her pintail feathers on the opposite page
I say "she"--several authors have argued that contrary to popular belief, confuciusornithids were not dimorphic, but presence or absence of pintail feathers was based on age, molting or both.
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Comments: 2
I didn´t know Confuciusornis had a curved beak.
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Well, Confuciusornis dui does. In fact its one of the very few Mesozoic birds that actually preserved a soft tissue beak, not just the underlying bone (which is straight, only the keratin part is curved). In the finished drawing you'll notice I changed this to C. sanctus and straightened the beak out. No beaks are preserved for C. sanctus proper, but a straight beak is known in Eoconfuciusornis, which I reckon is probably the same genus and/or species anyway. So, some Confuciusornis species had straight beaks, some curved.
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