MARGINALIA
Dinosaurs, the Media and Andy Warhol
Keith Thomson
How Tyrannosaurus Got Its Feathers
The chief thing we know about Tyrannosaurus rex, the fabled
king of the Late Cretaceous, is that we still have much to learn
about it, which should be a signal for caution, although it is also
a license for speculation. There are only 25 or so specimens of
T. rex, most incomplete, even though the species may
have survived for several million years and tens of thousands of
them, if not more, must have lived at one time or another.
In popular imagination, T. rex started out as a ferocious
tyrant. How are the mighty fallen, however! In 2001, Warhol's curse
struck T. rex and ushered in a drastic makeover for the
capo di capo of dinosaurs. (How easy it is to fall into
the style!) It had already been noised about that the thing was
really only a scavenger of something else's kills, more a hyena than
a lion. By May 2001, T. rex had become cuddly and possibly
even covered with feathers. By October, it had become the
"Woody Allen of dinosaurs," even neurotic.
This may turn out to be a just-not-so story. T. rex is a
member of a large group of dinosaurs called theropods. The idea that
theropod dinosaurs and birds are related is very old, dating back at
least to T. H. Huxley and now having much modern support. So far, so
good. But how did T. rex get feathers? In 1999,
National Geographic magazine published a story under
the title "Feathers for T. rex" in which an
amazing new find from China, intermediate between a bird and a
dromaeosaur, was described. Amazing indeed; it was a fake. In April
2001 in Nature, Qiang Ji et al. published an
account of a new Chinese theropod that had evidence of a kind of
proto-feathers. Once again the media homed in on
Tyrannosaurus: "Maybe even mighty Tyrannosaurus
rex had feathers," and "Maybe baby tyrannosaurus
looked something like a cute, fuzzy baby chick," said
ABCNEWS.com. Perhaps the best line went to science writer Deborah
Smith of the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald, April 27,
2001: "T-Rex in a feather boa turns heads among fossil
hunters." (T-rex instead of T. rex seems very popular
with journalists.)
Next, Jim Kirkland of the Utah Geological Survey and Doug Wolfe of
Mesa Southwest Museum released an account of a new North American
theropod—Nothronychus—at a Discovery Channel
press conference. Nothronychus was evidently a vegetarian
but with "bird-like characters and ? probably covered with
feathers, said the scientists" (Reuters, June 19, 2001), to the
newspapers' delight. But was there any evidence? At the press
conference it was stated that no feathers were found with
Nothronychus. Certainly none have been found with
Tyrannosaurus. So far the sequence is as follows: T.
rex is related (but not closely) to Nothronychus,
where there is no evidence of feathers; Nothronychus is
more closely related to the Chinese dinosaur Beipaosaurus,
where there is disputed evidence of proto-feathers. Score: feathers
3, logic 0.
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