Comment on Otto by Eurwentala
These days i tend to think that, if not all, most theropods had fuzz, at varying degrees depending on the environment, species and such, so i wouldn't rule out the possibility that maybe baby megalosaurs indeed looked like that...
My current strongest idea is that all archosaurs shared the genetic machinery for making filamentous integumentar structures, and multiple groups invented them separately: theropods, heterodontosaurs, ceratopsids, pterosaurs and most likely small crurotarsans too. Or, alternatively, feathers were already present in the ancestral archosaurs and were separately lost in some groups, though I find it hard to think why.
Any way, I think baby megalosaurs were most likely fluffy and could very well look like Otto. Though I'm not an expert, of course.
Any way, I think baby megalosaurs were most likely fluffy and could very well look like Otto. Though I'm not an expert, of course.
I'd lean to the first theory too... By the way, i've heard some time ago, from a member of the Dinosaur Toy Forum if i'm not mistaken, that maybe Psittacosaurus' quills were more like elongated scales than something originated from protofetahers; don't remember from what paleontologist he heard it, though...
That's fully possible, I think. And since filamentous stuff evolved from scales at least twice, why not several times in different lineages? Though I think there hasn't yet been a formal publication about the psittacosaur matter.
Yeah, i think so...