Dinosaurs had feathers before that (probably because feathers are good
for water, unlike fur). Some small dinosaurs ate insects. At that time
there was more oxygen in the air, insects were bigger. So, some
dinosaurs were trying to reach insects that were living in tree barks,
so they hardened their muzzles into beaks, like woodpeckers. Since they
were eating from tree bark, they had to climb tree (like squirrels).
Weight is deteriorating force for climbing, so those animals became
lightweight. And, at the end, they stopped to go down to the ground to
reach the other tree, but started to behave like flying squirrels.
Simple as that. Everything logical, everything gradual, and for
everything we have examples in nature (maybe only not for beaks, but for
flying sure we do have).

It's great to see you posting here again, Mario. Don't be discouraged
by my corrections. That's a good way to learn, and Harshman might
have made the same points you did, because he subscribes to the
hypotheses that have been popularized about feather development.

The popularizers refer to all kinds of things as "feathers":
hairlike growths, several such growths, from the same root, hairlike growths
that are frayed like the ends of some of the longer hairs
of one of my daughters. . . . These are found on some dinosaur fossils--
only a tiny percentage even now, because these things do not fossilize easily.
But I do not know of any genuine feathers on fossils that cannot
be hypothesized as secondarily flightless birds. So I call all these things
"protofeathers" and some of them just "dinofuzz."

On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:00:19 AM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:

> Dinosaurs had feathers before that (probably because feathers are good
> for water, unlike fur).

And unlike down. A mother ostrich always shelters her babies in the midst
of a downpour, to protect them from hypothermia.

Down would be an advanced kind of protofeather, as would the feathers of kiwis,
which lack barbules and hooks, IF they or down had ever been found
as Mesozoic fossils predating birds with genuine feathers.
But I don't know of any examples.

> Some small dinosaurs ate insects. At that time
> there was more oxygen in the air, insects were bigger. So, some
> dinosaurs were trying to reach insects that were living in tree barks,
> so they hardened their muzzles into beaks, like woodpeckers.

Very plausible. Did you read this somewhere, or did you figure
it out for yourself?

>Since they
> were eating from tree bark, they had to climb tree (like squirrels).
> Weight is deteriorating force for climbing, so those animals became
> lightweight. And, at the end, they stopped to go down to the ground to
> reach the other tree, but started to behave like flying squirrels.

So far, so good.

> Simple as that. Everything logical, everything gradual, and for
> everything we have examples in nature (maybe only not for beaks, but for
> flying sure we do have).

But NOT for feathers. Have you ever studied the intricate structure of
a contour feather, a flight feather [they are very asymmetrical -- do you know why?]
or a tail feather? Can you figure out a gradual evolution for them?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On 15.8.2023. 17:32, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> It's great to see you posting here again, Mario. Don't be discouraged
> by my corrections. That's a good way to learn, and Harshman might
> have made the same points you did, because he subscribes to the
> hypotheses that have been popularized about feather development.
>
> The popularizers refer to all kinds of things as "feathers":
> hairlike growths, several such growths, from the same root, hairlike growths
> that are frayed like the ends of some of the longer hairs
> of one of my daughters. . . . These are found on some dinosaur fossils--
> only a tiny percentage even now, because these things do not fossilize easily.
> But I do not know of any genuine feathers on fossils that cannot
> be hypothesized as secondarily flightless birds. So I call all these things
> "protofeathers" and some of them just "dinofuzz."
>
>
> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:00:19 AM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>
>> Dinosaurs had feathers before that (probably because feathers are good
>> for water, unlike fur).
>
> And unlike down. A mother ostrich always shelters her babies in the midst
> of a downpour, to protect them from hypothermia.
>
> Down would be an advanced kind of protofeather, as would the feathers of kiwis,
> which lack barbules and hooks, IF they or down had ever been found
> as Mesozoic fossils predating birds with genuine feathers.
> But I don't know of any examples.
>
>
>> Some small dinosaurs ate insects. At that time
>> there was more oxygen in the air, insects were bigger. So, some
>> dinosaurs were trying to reach insects that were living in tree barks,
>> so they hardened their muzzles into beaks, like woodpeckers.
>
> Very plausible. Did you read this somewhere, or did you figure
> it out for yourself?

This was the basic idea of the whole scenario. When I got the idea I
made a scenario over it. I was thinking about birds, beaks, and then
came woodpecker, and I said, why not, constructed the scenario, saw that
scenario is plausible, and voila, came here to write about it, :) . When
scenario has so much reference in real life, it should, pretty much, be
realistic. The similar thing happened later with mammals, squirrels.

> >Since they
>> were eating from tree bark, they had to climb tree (like squirrels).
>> Weight is deteriorating force for climbing, so those animals became
>> lightweight. And, at the end, they stopped to go down to the ground to
>> reach the other tree, but started to behave like flying squirrels.
>
> So far, so good.
>
>> Simple as that. Everything logical, everything gradual, and for
>> everything we have examples in nature (maybe only not for beaks, but for
>> flying sure we do have).
>
> But NOT for feathers. Have you ever studied the intricate structure of
> a contour feather, a flight feather [they are very asymmetrical -- do you know why?]
> or a tail feather? Can you figure out a gradual evolution for them?

Regarding feathers, it may be different variants, but they all came
from one prototype, and this prototype was present in dinosaurs before
the emergence of birds.
In general, when I think about past times, I always think about
temperature (maybe because I don't like coldness, :) ). The temperature
was higher. Per every Celsius of higher temperature you have 7 % higher
precipitation. This means more water in circulation, this means that the
whole area was pretty much flooded.
When I see dinosaurs I see huge bodies. Huge bodies fit well in water,
but not on solid ground. When I see dinosaur body shape, I see long and
strong tail. This can be for propelling in water. See all those body shapes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur#/media/File:Bulletin_(1969)_(19798844494).jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur#/media/File:Sinosauropteryx_color.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur#/media/File:Herrerasaurusskeleton.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur#/media/File:Dromaeosaurs.png
Even this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur#/media/File:Argentinosaurus_9.svg
Regularly you see a horizontal line, from neck to tail, including long
tail. This fits perfectly with swimming in water, in a snake like
motion, on a flooded ground, with legs pushing on the bottom of a lake.
You have a lot of vegetation on a lake shore, because it is unobstructed
for sun.
And then I see water birds, and I realize that feathers are good in
water, unlike fur. Probably much better in salty water too (salt
crystals destroy fur, I am not sure about feathers, but maybe feathers
are good in salty water).
So, we had fish, we had reptiles, and then came dinosaurs.
In my view mammals evolved on the poles.

Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> Dinosaurs had feathers before that (probably because feathers are good
> for water, unlike fur). Some small dinosaurs ate insects. At that time
> there was more oxygen in the air, insects were bigger. So, some
> dinosaurs were trying to reach insects that were living in tree barks,
> so they hardened their muzzles into beaks, like woodpeckers. Since they
> were eating from tree bark, they had to climb tree (like squirrels).
> Weight is deteriorating force for climbing, so those animals became
> lightweight. And, at the end, they stopped to go down to the ground to
> reach the other tree, but started to behave like flying squirrels.
> Simple as that. Everything logical, everything gradual, and for
> everything we have examples in nature (maybe only not for beaks, but for
> flying sure we do have).

Feathers are great for so many things.

They started in the Triassic. But of course the rules here are a bit weird.

If it appears on anything dinosaur or whatever, it's a "Feather" or "Proto
Feather."

If it appears on anything else, it's a "Hair" or even "Fur."

Doesn't matter WHERE on the body it's located or what it looks like, these
rules apply...

[...]

-- --

https://jtem.tumblr.com/post/725665198075248640

On 8/15/23 8:32 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> It's great to see you posting here again, Mario. Don't be discouraged
> by my corrections. That's a good way to learn, and Harshman might
> have made the same points you did, because he subscribes to the
> hypotheses that have been popularized about feather development.
>
> The popularizers refer to all kinds of things as "feathers":
> hairlike growths, several such growths, from the same root, hairlike growths
> that are frayed like the ends of some of the longer hairs
> of one of my daughters. . . . These are found on some dinosaur fossils--
> only a tiny percentage even now, because these things do not fossilize easily.
> But I do not know of any genuine feathers on fossils that cannot
> be hypothesized as secondarily flightless birds. So I call all these things
> "protofeathers" and some of them just "dinofuzz."

Can't any fossil be hypothesized as secondarily flightless? So how is
that a test? What's the scientific distinction between "genuine
feathers" and "protofeathers"?

> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:00:19 AM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>
>> Dinosaurs had feathers before that (probably because feathers are good
>> for water, unlike fur).
>
> And unlike down. A mother ostrich always shelters her babies in the midst
> of a downpour, to protect them from hypothermia.

Then again, downy ducklings do just find in the water. There must be
some way to make down work in an aquatic bird.

> Down would be an advanced kind of protofeather, as would the feathers of kiwis,
> which lack barbules and hooks, IF they or down had ever been found
> as Mesozoic fossils predating birds with genuine feathers.
> But I don't know of any examples.
>
>
>> Some small dinosaurs ate insects. At that time
>> there was more oxygen in the air, insects were bigger. So, some
>> dinosaurs were trying to reach insects that were living in tree barks,
>> so they hardened their muzzles into beaks, like woodpeckers.
>
> Very plausible. Did you read this somewhere, or did you figure
> it out for yourself?

It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark. And the average
maniraptoran doesn't have a beak. Nor is there any evidence I'm aware of
that insects were in general bigger in the Mesozoic.

> >Since they
>> were eating from tree bark, they had to climb tree (like squirrels).
>> Weight is deteriorating force for climbing, so those animals became
>> lightweight. And, at the end, they stopped to go down to the ground to
>> reach the other tree, but started to behave like flying squirrels.
>
> So far, so good.
>
>> Simple as that. Everything logical, everything gradual, and for
>> everything we have examples in nature (maybe only not for beaks, but for
>> flying sure we do have).
>
> But NOT for feathers. Have you ever studied the intricate structure of
> a contour feather, a flight feather [they are very asymmetrical -- do you know why?]
> or a tail feather? Can you figure out a gradual evolution for them?

See Prum & Brush 2001. I presume you have read that already.

On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:55:14 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/15/23 8:32 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> > It's great to see you posting here again, Mario. Don't be discouraged
> > by my corrections. That's a good way to learn, and Harshman might
> > have made the same points you did, because he subscribes to the
> > hypotheses that have been popularized about feather development.
> >
> > The popularizers refer to all kinds of things as "feathers":
> > hairlike growths, several such growths from the same root, hairlike growths
> > that are frayed like the ends of some of the longer hairs
> > of one of my daughters. . . . These are found on some dinosaur fossils--
> > only a tiny percentage even now, because these things do not fossilize easily.

> > But I do not know of any genuine feathers on fossils that cannot
> > be hypothesized as secondarily flightless birds. So I call all these things
> > "protofeathers" and some of them just "dinofuzz."

> Can't any fossil be hypothesized as secondarily flightless?

Not unless you call wild stabs in the dark (including highly
counterintuitive ones) "hypotheses."

> So how is
> that a test? What's the scientific distinction between "genuine
> feathers" and "protofeathers"?

Since you are the ornithologist here, you should be giving the
scientific distinction, if there is one. I doubt that there is one.

> > On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:00:19 AM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >
> >> Dinosaurs had feathers before that (probably because feathers are good
> >> for water, unlike fur).
> >
> > And unlike down. A mother ostrich always shelters her babies in the midst
> > of a downpour, to protect them from hypothermia.

> Then again, downy ducklings do just find in the water. There must be
> some way to make down work in an aquatic bird.

It's called "oils," isn't it?

I'm reminded of a delightful children's book by Vladimir Suteyev [Cyrillic: CYTEEB]
in which the first story shows a chick imitating a duckling digging, catching a worm,...
until it jumps in the water after the duckling and starts to drown. Heeding its cries for help,
the duckling pulls the chick out of the water. The last picture shows the chick out on solid ground
with water pouring off it and the duckling telling the chick that he is returning to the water,
with the chick responding, "But not I!"

> > Down would be an advanced kind of protofeather, as would the feathers of kiwis,
> > which lack barbules and hooks, IF they or down had ever been found
> > as Mesozoic fossils predating birds with genuine feathers.
> > But I don't know of any examples.
> >
> >
> >> Some small dinosaurs ate insects. At that time
> >> there was more oxygen in the air,

This is controversial, according to the book,
_The Princeton Field Guide to Pterosaurs_.
I now have my own copy, and I'll be starting a new thread for an in-depth review this week.

> > > insects were bigger. So, some
> >> dinosaurs were trying to reach insects that were living in tree barks,
> >> so they hardened their muzzles into beaks, like woodpeckers.
> >
> > Very plausible. Did you read this somewhere, or did you figure
> > it out for yourself?

> It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark.

So all that hammering on trees is just for attracting attention???

You really ought to consider your audience when you give
comments that are likely to induce double-takes.

> And the average
> maniraptoran doesn't have a beak. Nor is there any evidence I'm aware of
> that insects were in general bigger in the Mesozoic.

Nor I. The real biggies were during the Paleozoic. Also, at one point
there were millipedes two meters long and the better part of a meter wide.
I saw a model of one in a museum about a decade ago.

> > >Since they
> >> were eating from tree bark, they had to climb tree (like squirrels).
> >> Weight is deteriorating force for climbing, so those animals became
> >> lightweight. And, at the end, they stopped to go down to the ground to
> >> reach the other tree, but started to behave like flying squirrels.
> >
> > So far, so good.
> >
> >> Simple as that. Everything logical, everything gradual, and for
> >> everything we have examples in nature (maybe only not for beaks, but for
> >> flying sure we do have).
> >
> > But NOT for feathers. Have you ever studied the intricate structure of
> > a contour feather, a flight feather [they are very asymmetrical -- do you know why?]
> > or a tail feather? Can you figure out a gradual evolution for them?

You obviously have some strange ideas for what the word "gradual" meant
to Darwin; that's the default meaning of the word in these contexts, isn't it?

> See Prum & Brush 2001. I presume you have read that already.

Yes, but all it shows are a few isolated stages. Since they don't believe in hopeful monsters,
they are leaving out dozens if not hundreds of finely graded steps between
hairlike growths and feathers that are complete with calamus, central shaft, barbs, barbules and hooks.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

PS On the whole, I prefer JTEM's post to yours. But there is a very recent exception
to what he says, and I'll tell him about it.

On 15.8.2023. 20:55, John Harshman wrote:
> It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark. And the average
> maniraptoran doesn't have a beak. Nor is there any evidence I'm aware of
> that insects were in general bigger in the Mesozoic.

I don't know if I got this right, but it could be that my theory
predicted this result:
https://news.ucsc.edu/2012/06/giant-insects.html

On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 1:57:01 PM UTC-4, JTEM wrote:

> Feathers are great for so many things.
>
> They started in the Triassic. But of course the rules here are a bit weird.
>
> If it appears on anything dinosaur or whatever, it's a "Feather" or "Proto
> Feather."
>
> If it appears on anything else, it's a "Hair" or even "Fur."
>
> Doesn't matter WHERE on the body it's located or what it looks like, these
> rules apply...

I learned about an exception in the 2022 book on pterosaurs that I told
Harshman about: _The Princeton Field Guide to Pterosaurs_. The author,
Gregory S. Paul, says the following on page 44:

"A modest number of pterosaur specimens record the presence of filamentary body coverings (Witton 2013; Yang et al. 2020). These are not fur, the fibers not being the same as the hair that adorns the unrelated mammals. What they appear to be are feathers. The filament shafts are hollow, which is true of feathers but not of normally solid-shafted mammalian fur. And pterosaur filaments are in at least some cases branched (Yang et al. 2018, 2020), a characteristic of feathers but not fur. The branching is fairly simple, like the feathers adorning some nonavian dinosaurs as well as birds, although the ultrasophisticated contour feathers common to many [*sic*] birds are not seen in pterosaurs. These pterosaurian pycnofibers, or pycnofeathers, were usually short, at 5-10 mm, but were sometimes longer atop the necks of some pterosaurs."

My "[*sic*] was due to "almost all" being the correct term. Offhand I don't know of any birds
that lack contour feathers of the traditional sort except kiwis.

I'm not sure why Gregory S. Paul decided to use the word "feathers", but he seriously entertains
the possibility that they are homologous to bird feathers. I think he is going out on a limb,
along with some other paleontologists. After all, the chemical composition of pterosaurian
pycnofibers is unknown, and until it is found, the best that can be done IMO is to say
that they are more convergent to rudimentary feathers in birds than to mammalian hair.

A pseudonymous paleontologist [perhaps an amateur rather than a professional] on Reddit,
kinginyellow25, suggested a nice neutral term for these structures: filamentous integuments.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Paleontology/comments/10jz0zd/pycnofibre_is_a_defunct_term_its_either_feathers/?rdt=41550

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On 8/15/23 2:08 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:55:14 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/15/23 8:32 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
>>> It's great to see you posting here again, Mario. Don't be discouraged
>>> by my corrections. That's a good way to learn, and Harshman might
>>> have made the same points you did, because he subscribes to the
>>> hypotheses that have been popularized about feather development.
>>>
>>> The popularizers refer to all kinds of things as "feathers":
>>> hairlike growths, several such growths from the same root, hairlike growths
>>> that are frayed like the ends of some of the longer hairs
>>> of one of my daughters. . . . These are found on some dinosaur fossils--
>>> only a tiny percentage even now, because these things do not fossilize easily.
>
>>> But I do not know of any genuine feathers on fossils that cannot
>>> be hypothesized as secondarily flightless birds. So I call all these things
>>> "protofeathers" and some of them just "dinofuzz."
>
>> Can't any fossil be hypothesized as secondarily flightless?
>
> Not unless you call wild stabs in the dark (including highly
> counterintuitive ones) "hypotheses."

So you would need some kind of evidence in order to reasonably suppose
that a dinosaur was secondarily flightless. What evidence are you
thinking of here?

>> So how is
>> that a test? What's the scientific distinction between "genuine
>> feathers" and "protofeathers"?
>
> Since you are the ornithologist here, you should be giving the
> scientific distinction, if there is one. I doubt that there is one.

That's right, there is none. So why are you making this distinction?

>>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:00:19 AM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dinosaurs had feathers before that (probably because feathers are good
>>>> for water, unlike fur).
>>>
>>> And unlike down. A mother ostrich always shelters her babies in the midst
>>> of a downpour, to protect them from hypothermia.
>
>> Then again, downy ducklings do just find in the water. There must be
>> some way to make down work in an aquatic bird.
>
> It's called "oils," isn't it?
>
> I'm reminded of a delightful children's book by Vladimir Suteyev [Cyrillic: CYTEEB]
> in which the first story shows a chick imitating a duckling digging, catching a worm,...
> until it jumps in the water after the duckling and starts to drown. Heeding its cries for help,
> the duckling pulls the chick out of the water. The last picture shows the chick out on solid ground
> with water pouring off it and the duckling telling the chick that he is returning to the water,
> with the chick responding, "But not I!"

Don't know that one, but it sounds reasonable (the drowning, not the
rest of it). And presumably this has something to do with differences in
grooming habits and use of the preen gland secretions.

>>> Down would be an advanced kind of protofeather, as would the feathers of kiwis,
>>> which lack barbules and hooks, IF they or down had ever been found
>>> as Mesozoic fossils predating birds with genuine feathers.
>>> But I don't know of any examples.
>>>
>>>
>>>> Some small dinosaurs ate insects. At that time
>>>> there was more oxygen in the air,
>
> This is controversial, according to the book,
> _The Princeton Field Guide to Pterosaurs_.
> I now have my own copy, and I'll be starting a new thread for an in-depth review this week.
>
>
>>>> insects were bigger. So, some
>>>> dinosaurs were trying to reach insects that were living in tree barks,
>>>> so they hardened their muzzles into beaks, like woodpeckers.
>>>
>>> Very plausible. Did you read this somewhere, or did you figure
>>> it out for yourself?
>
>> It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark.
>
> So all that hammering on trees is just for attracting attention???

Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers that
do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that matters
for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special anatomical
adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod skeleton if the
comparison were apt.

And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for attracting
attention. It's called "drumming".

> You really ought to consider your audience when you give
> comments that are likely to induce double-takes.

It's hard to be sure how much the audience knows.

>> And the average
>> maniraptoran doesn't have a beak. Nor is there any evidence I'm aware of
>> that insects were in general bigger in the Mesozoic.
>
> Nor I. The real biggies were during the Paleozoic. Also, at one point
> there were millipedes two meters long and the better part of a meter wide.
> I saw a model of one in a museum about a decade ago.

So did I, and the fossil it was based on. Always thought it would have
made a good bench.

>>>> Since they
>>>> were eating from tree bark, they had to climb tree (like squirrels).
>>>> Weight is deteriorating force for climbing, so those animals became
>>>> lightweight. And, at the end, they stopped to go down to the ground to
>>>> reach the other tree, but started to behave like flying squirrels.
>>>
>>> So far, so good.
>>>
>>>> Simple as that. Everything logical, everything gradual, and for
>>>> everything we have examples in nature (maybe only not for beaks, but for
>>>> flying sure we do have).
>>>
>>> But NOT for feathers. Have you ever studied the intricate structure of
>>> a contour feather, a flight feather [they are very asymmetrical -- do you know why?]
>>> or a tail feather? Can you figure out a gradual evolution for them?
>
> You obviously have some strange ideas for what the word "gradual" meant
> to Darwin; that's the default meaning of the word in these contexts, isn't it?
>
>> See Prum & Brush 2001. I presume you have read that already.
>
> Yes, but all it shows are a few isolated stages. Since they don't believe in hopeful monsters,
> they are leaving out dozens if not hundreds of finely graded steps between
> hairlike growths and feathers that are complete with calamus, central shaft, barbs, barbules and hooks.

Hundreds are probably not necessary. A few incipient structures that can
then be refined by selection, more likely.

> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of South Carolina
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>
> PS On the whole, I prefer JTEM's post to yours. But there is a very recent exception
> to what he says, and I'll tell him about it.

On the whole, I think you have quite bad judgment on matters like that,
possibly due to personal bias.

On 8/15/23 2:27 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 15.8.2023. 20:55, John Harshman wrote:
>> It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark. And the average
>> maniraptoran doesn't have a beak. Nor is there any evidence I'm aware
>> of that insects were in general bigger in the Mesozoic.
>
>         I don't know if I got this right, but it could be that my
> theory predicted this result:
> https://news.ucsc.edu/2012/06/giant-insects.html

Bleedin' annoying that the article here doesn't manage to cite its
actual source. But here it is:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1204026109

On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers that
> do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that matters
> for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special anatomical
> adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod skeleton if the
> comparison were apt.
>
> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for attracting
> attention. It's called "drumming".

I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make such
faulty conclusions?
All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat various
food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions that birds
in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and had various
behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend. Of course the first bird
occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food, and had only one
type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical adaptations, in the
beginning they were very similar to other similar dinosaurs. I mean,
bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy all the niches that
today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't eat honey, or fish, and
didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye looked more like dogs. I
mean, you are writing in the paleontology forum for god's sake, you got
to have some basic understandings of those things. At least.
So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or are they
drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older you get, the
crazier you are.

Peter Nyikos wrote:

> I'm not sure why Gregory S. Paul decided to use the word "feathers", but he seriously entertains
> the possibility that they are homologous to bird feathers.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46572782

Absent DNA, which we'll never have, and given the relationships
posed, we'd have to pass it off as convergent evolution.

These "Hairs" or "Feathers" or "Structures" are likely similar in some
regards to feathers in birds as they are subjected to some of the
same forces.

> I think he is going out on a limb,

There might be a consensus against him but without DNA he can
never be proven wrong.

> A pseudonymous paleontologist [perhaps an amateur rather than a professional] on Reddit,
> kinginyellow25, suggested a nice neutral term for these structures: filamentous integuments.

Going back way too many years, I came up with "Hair like thingies."

-- --

https://jtem.tumblr.com/post/725665198075248640

On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 7:00:28 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/15/23 2:27 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> > On 15.8.2023. 20:55, John Harshman wrote:

> >> It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark. And the average
> >> maniraptoran doesn't have a beak. Nor is there any evidence I'm aware
> >> of that insects were in general bigger in the Mesozoic.

The PNAS article that you linked below provides a lot of good data on this in Fig. 1.
> > I don't know if I got this right, but it could be that my
> > theory predicted this result:
> > https://news.ucsc.edu/2012/06/giant-insects.html

> Bleedin' annoying that the article here doesn't manage to cite its
> actual source.

What I found even more annoying is that it didn't give even one
wing measurement during the whole Mesozoic while talking
about the giant Paleozoic relative of the dragonfly having a wingspan
of ca. 70 cm and even showing a picture of a fossil of a wing of one,
next to the largest Cenozoic dragonfly.

Another annoyance is that someone not well versed in paleontology
could get the impression that bats were already in existence before the
end of the Cretaceous:

"Another transition in insect size occurred more recently at the end of the Cretaceous period, between 90 and 65 million years ago. Again, a shortage of fossils makes it hard to track the decrease in insect sizes during this period, and several factors could be responsible. These include the continued specialization of birds, the evolution of bats, and a mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous."

You did us all a service by finding the PNAS article referred to in the Mario-provided article:

> But here it is:
>
> https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1204026109

It provides oodles of measurements at lots of points of time, a few of which
the news release could easily have provided. See especially Fig. 1,
which also tracks oxygen concentration over the same time interval.

One minor annoyance: the PNAS article nowhere gives the
present-day concentration of oxygen [the Mario-linked article says 21%].

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On 8/15/23 5:06 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers that
>> do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that matters
>> for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special anatomical
>> adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod skeleton if the
>> comparison were apt.
>>
>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for
>> attracting attention. It's called "drumming".
>
>         I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make
> such faulty conclusions?
>         All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat
> various food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions
> that birds in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and
> had various behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend. Of course the
> first bird occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food, and had
> only one type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
>         Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical adaptations,
> in the beginning they were very similar to other similar dinosaurs. I
> mean, bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy all the niches
> that today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't eat honey, or fish,
> and didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye looked more like dogs. I
> mean, you are writing in the paleontology forum for god's sake, you got
> to have some basic understandings of those things. At least.
>         So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or are
> they drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older you
> get, the crazier you are.

I believe you are misunderstanding much of what I say. Woodpeckers are
very specialized and so are not a good model for the earliest birds. I
do suspect that many small theropods at mostly insects, but the chance
that they hunted them in a woodpecker-like way is nearly zero. And
that's not what beaks, in general, are for. Early birds and small
theropods do not have the skeletal features necessary for beating their
noses against trees.

On 16.8.2023. 4:11, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/15/23 5:06 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers
>>> that do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that
>>> matters for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special
>>> anatomical adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod
>>> skeleton if the comparison were apt.
>>>
>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for
>>> attracting attention. It's called "drumming".
>>
>>          I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make
>> such faulty conclusions?
>>          All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat
>> various food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions
>> that birds in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and
>> had various behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend. Of course
>> the first bird occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food, and
>> had only one type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
>>          Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical adaptations,
>> in the beginning they were very similar to other similar dinosaurs. I
>> mean, bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy all the niches
>> that today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't eat honey, or
>> fish, and didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye looked more like
>> dogs. I mean, you are writing in the paleontology forum for god's
>> sake, you got to have some basic understandings of those things. At
>> least.
>>          So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or
>> are they drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older
>> you get, the crazier you are.
>
> I believe you are misunderstanding much of what I say. Woodpeckers are
> very specialized and so are not a good model for the earliest birds. I
> do suspect that many small theropods at mostly insects, but the chance
> that they hunted them in a woodpecker-like way is nearly zero. And
> that's not what beaks, in general, are for. Early birds and small
> theropods do not have the skeletal features necessary for beating their
> noses against trees.

I am aware of the specializations that woodpecker have, I just don't
think that it is necessary to have them early in the game, especially
while insects are still large. Remember, the idea is that those two
things, the diminishing of insects and the evolution of birds, are
connected. So, at the very beginning you have large insects, and birds
still not evolved, only peeking into the niche. So, birds adapt to
insects, insects adapt to new conditions, to birds eating them. First it
goes bird inaugural adaptation, then insect adaptation.
Beaks could initially be adapted to similar things, like eating worms
from the ground. Ground is softer. So, beaks, here, aren't actually
crucial for flying. So this doesn't explain lightweight and flying, for
lightweight and flying you need the second stage, climbing trees and
moving from tree to tree, exactly like flying squirrels do.

On 16.8.2023. 4:46, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 16.8.2023. 4:11, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/15/23 5:06 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers
>>>> that do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that
>>>> matters for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special
>>>> anatomical adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod
>>>> skeleton if the comparison were apt.
>>>>
>>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for
>>>> attracting attention. It's called "drumming".
>>>
>>>          I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make
>>> such faulty conclusions?
>>>          All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat
>>> various food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions
>>> that birds in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and
>>> had various behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend. Of course
>>> the first bird occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food,
>>> and had only one type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
>>>          Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical
>>> adaptations, in the beginning they were very similar to other similar
>>> dinosaurs. I mean, bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy
>>> all the niches that today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't
>>> eat honey, or fish, and didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye
>>> looked more like dogs. I mean, you are writing in the paleontology
>>> forum for god's sake, you got to have some basic understandings of
>>> those things. At least.
>>>          So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or
>>> are they drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older
>>> you get, the crazier you are.
>>
>> I believe you are misunderstanding much of what I say. Woodpeckers are
>> very specialized and so are not a good model for the earliest birds. I
>> do suspect that many small theropods at mostly insects, but the chance
>> that they hunted them in a woodpecker-like way is nearly zero. And
>> that's not what beaks, in general, are for. Early birds and small
>> theropods do not have the skeletal features necessary for beating
>> their noses against trees.
>
>         I am aware of the specializations that woodpecker have, I just
> don't think that it is necessary to have them early in the game,
> especially while insects are still large. Remember, the idea is that
> those two things, the diminishing of insects and the evolution of birds,
> are connected. So, at the very beginning you have large insects, and
> birds still not evolved, only peeking into the niche. So, birds adapt to
> insects, insects adapt to new conditions, to birds eating them. First it
> goes bird inaugural adaptation, then insect adaptation.
>         Beaks could initially be adapted to similar things, like eating
> worms from the ground. Ground is softer. So, beaks, here, aren't
> actually crucial for flying. So this doesn't explain lightweight and
> flying, for lightweight and flying you need the second stage, climbing
> trees and moving from tree to tree, exactly like flying squirrels do.

While we are at that, they don't need necessary to poke into bark,
initially they could just eat insects that are on trees. There are a lot
of insects up there. Who ate them? It has to be somebody who acquired
light bones, and later moved from tree to tree by flying. But animals
that did that had beaks. So what were those beaks for? It fits with
poking a tree bark.
So, on one hand you have lightweight, flying, on the other hand you
have beaks, on those animals who flew. It can only be for poking tree
bark, this is the connection, those two things are connected. It doesn't
have to be such a radical poking like woodpeckers have, but this is a
connection.
And when they finally learnt to fly, well, this opened a lot of other
possibilities, so those animals spread their niches.

On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 05:57:46 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 16.8.2023. 4:46, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> > On 16.8.2023. 4:11, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 8/15/23 5:06 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers
> >>>> that do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that
> >>>> matters for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special
> >>>> anatomical adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod
> >>>> skeleton if the comparison were apt.
> >>>>
> >>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for
> >>>> attracting attention. It's called "drumming".
> >>>
> >>> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make
> >>> such faulty conclusions?
> >>> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat
> >>> various food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions
> >>> that birds in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and
> >>> had various behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend. Of course
> >>> the first bird occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food,
> >>> and had only one type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
> >>> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical
> >>> adaptations, in the beginning they were very similar to other similar
> >>> dinosaurs. I mean, bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy
> >>> all the niches that today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't
> >>> eat honey, or fish, and didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye
> >>> looked more like dogs. I mean, you are writing in the paleontology
> >>> forum for god's sake, you got to have some basic understandings of
> >>> those things. At least.
> >>> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or
> >>> are they drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older
> >>> you get, the crazier you are.
> >>
> >> I believe you are misunderstanding much of what I say. Woodpeckers are
> >> very specialized and so are not a good model for the earliest birds. I
> >> do suspect that many small theropods at mostly insects, but the chance
> >> that they hunted them in a woodpecker-like way is nearly zero. And
> >> that's not what beaks, in general, are for. Early birds and small
> >> theropods do not have the skeletal features necessary for beating
> >> their noses against trees.
> >
> > I am aware of the specializations that woodpecker have, I just
> > don't think that it is necessary to have them early in the game,
> > especially while insects are still large. Remember, the idea is that
> > those two things, the diminishing of insects and the evolution of birds,
> > are connected. So, at the very beginning you have large insects, and
> > birds still not evolved, only peeking into the niche. So, birds adapt to
> > insects, insects adapt to new conditions, to birds eating them. First it
> > goes bird inaugural adaptation, then insect adaptation.
> > Beaks could initially be adapted to similar things, like eating
> > worms from the ground. Ground is softer. So, beaks, here, aren't
> > actually crucial for flying. So this doesn't explain lightweight and
> > flying, for lightweight and flying you need the second stage, climbing
> > trees and moving from tree to tree, exactly like flying squirrels do.
>
> While we are at that, they don't need necessary to poke into bark,
> initially they could just eat insects that are on trees. There are a lot
> of insects up there. Who ate them? It has to be somebody who acquired
> light bones, and later moved from tree to tree by flying. But animals
> that did that had beaks. So what were those beaks for? It fits with
> poking a tree bark.
>
Most of food isn't under tree bark to this day and so only few birds care
about breaking it. Feels unlikely that it was case on prehistorc times.
Other benefits (like for example better aerodynamics, convenience of
tidying and cleaning feathers) may be bigger pressures to evolve
beak than bark of trees.

> So, on one hand you have lightweight, flying, on the other hand you
> have beaks, on those animals who flew. It can only be for poking tree
> bark, this is the connection, those two things are connected. It doesn't
> have to be such a radical poking like woodpeckers have, but this is a
> connection.
> And when they finally learnt to fly, well, this opened a lot of other
> possibilities, so those animals spread their niches.
>
Order of events might be was flight before beak. Earlier fossils
of paravians that did most likely fly (or at least glide) have teeth,
not beak yet.

On 16.8.2023. 9:18, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 05:57:46 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 16.8.2023. 4:46, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> On 16.8.2023. 4:11, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 8/15/23 5:06 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers
>>>>>> that do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that
>>>>>> matters for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special
>>>>>> anatomical adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod
>>>>>> skeleton if the comparison were apt.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for
>>>>>> attracting attention. It's called "drumming".
>>>>>
>>>>> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make
>>>>> such faulty conclusions?
>>>>> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat
>>>>> various food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions
>>>>> that birds in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and
>>>>> had various behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend. Of course
>>>>> the first bird occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food,
>>>>> and had only one type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
>>>>> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical
>>>>> adaptations, in the beginning they were very similar to other similar
>>>>> dinosaurs. I mean, bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy
>>>>> all the niches that today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't
>>>>> eat honey, or fish, and didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye
>>>>> looked more like dogs. I mean, you are writing in the paleontology
>>>>> forum for god's sake, you got to have some basic understandings of
>>>>> those things. At least.
>>>>> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or
>>>>> are they drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older
>>>>> you get, the crazier you are.
>>>>
>>>> I believe you are misunderstanding much of what I say. Woodpeckers are
>>>> very specialized and so are not a good model for the earliest birds. I
>>>> do suspect that many small theropods at mostly insects, but the chance
>>>> that they hunted them in a woodpecker-like way is nearly zero. And
>>>> that's not what beaks, in general, are for. Early birds and small
>>>> theropods do not have the skeletal features necessary for beating
>>>> their noses against trees.
>>>
>>> I am aware of the specializations that woodpecker have, I just
>>> don't think that it is necessary to have them early in the game,
>>> especially while insects are still large. Remember, the idea is that
>>> those two things, the diminishing of insects and the evolution of birds,
>>> are connected. So, at the very beginning you have large insects, and
>>> birds still not evolved, only peeking into the niche. So, birds adapt to
>>> insects, insects adapt to new conditions, to birds eating them. First it
>>> goes bird inaugural adaptation, then insect adaptation.
>>> Beaks could initially be adapted to similar things, like eating
>>> worms from the ground. Ground is softer. So, beaks, here, aren't
>>> actually crucial for flying. So this doesn't explain lightweight and
>>> flying, for lightweight and flying you need the second stage, climbing
>>> trees and moving from tree to tree, exactly like flying squirrels do.
>>
>> While we are at that, they don't need necessary to poke into bark,
>> initially they could just eat insects that are on trees. There are a lot
>> of insects up there. Who ate them? It has to be somebody who acquired
>> light bones, and later moved from tree to tree by flying. But animals
>> that did that had beaks. So what were those beaks for? It fits with
>> poking a tree bark.
>>
> Most of food isn't under tree bark to this day and so only few birds care
> about breaking it. Feels unlikely that it was case on prehistorc times.
> Other benefits (like for example better aerodynamics, convenience of
> tidying and cleaning feathers) may be bigger pressures to evolve
> beak than bark of trees.
>
>> So, on one hand you have lightweight, flying, on the other hand you
>> have beaks, on those animals who flew. It can only be for poking tree
>> bark, this is the connection, those two things are connected. It doesn't
>> have to be such a radical poking like woodpeckers have, but this is a
>> connection.
>> And when they finally learnt to fly, well, this opened a lot of other
>> possibilities, so those animals spread their niches.
>>
> Order of events might be was flight before beak. Earlier fossils
> of paravians that did most likely fly (or at least glide) have teeth,
> not beak yet.

Thanks for the info. In general, this is a competition, you eat, there
is more birds than food, you dig deeper, you are forced to dig deeper,
and bark is where this additional food is.
Compare this situation to my explanation of human kiss. Per my idea,
we ate sea shellfish. You dive for shellfish, but near surface shellfish
are first to be eaten. Then you have to dive deeper. You can go even
deeper if your partner (whom you have to trust with your life, trust is
important thing in human relationships) meet you half way up and gives
you additional air. So, basically, the principle is, first you eat all
the easily acquired food, but then you are forced to dig deeper. And
also, initially there could be much more food in shallow waters, but,
hey, you eat this out, you have to adapt for this small additional piece.

On 16.8.2023. 13:40, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 16.8.2023. 9:18, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 05:57:46 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> On 16.8.2023. 4:46, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>> On 16.8.2023. 4:11, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>> On 8/15/23 5:06 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers
>>>>>>> that do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that
>>>>>>> matters for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special
>>>>>>> anatomical adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod
>>>>>>> skeleton if the comparison were apt.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for
>>>>>>> attracting attention. It's called "drumming".
>>>>>>
>>>>>>           I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make
>>>>>> such faulty conclusions?
>>>>>>           All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat
>>>>>> various food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions
>>>>>> that birds in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and
>>>>>> had various behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend. Of course
>>>>>> the first bird occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food,
>>>>>> and had only one type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
>>>>>>           Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical
>>>>>> adaptations, in the beginning they were very similar to other similar
>>>>>> dinosaurs. I mean, bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy
>>>>>> all the niches that today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't
>>>>>> eat honey, or fish, and didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye
>>>>>> looked more like dogs. I mean, you are writing in the paleontology
>>>>>> forum for god's sake, you got to have some basic understandings of
>>>>>> those things. At least.
>>>>>>           So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or
>>>>>> are they drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older
>>>>>> you get, the crazier you are.
>>>>>
>>>>> I believe you are misunderstanding much of what I say. Woodpeckers are
>>>>> very specialized and so are not a good model for the earliest birds. I
>>>>> do suspect that many small theropods at mostly insects, but the chance
>>>>> that they hunted them in a woodpecker-like way is nearly zero. And
>>>>> that's not what beaks, in general, are for. Early birds and small
>>>>> theropods do not have the skeletal features necessary for beating
>>>>> their noses against trees.
>>>>
>>>>          I am aware of the specializations that woodpecker have, I just
>>>> don't think that it is necessary to have them early in the game,
>>>> especially while insects are still large. Remember, the idea is that
>>>> those two things, the diminishing of insects and the evolution of
>>>> birds,
>>>> are connected. So, at the very beginning you have large insects, and
>>>> birds still not evolved, only peeking into the niche. So, birds
>>>> adapt to
>>>> insects, insects adapt to new conditions, to birds eating them.
>>>> First it
>>>> goes bird inaugural adaptation, then insect adaptation.
>>>>          Beaks could initially be adapted to similar things, like
>>>> eating
>>>> worms from the ground. Ground is softer. So, beaks, here, aren't
>>>> actually crucial for flying. So this doesn't explain lightweight and
>>>> flying, for lightweight and flying you need the second stage, climbing
>>>> trees and moving from tree to tree, exactly like flying squirrels do.
>>>
>>> While we are at that, they don't need necessary to poke into bark,
>>> initially they could just eat insects that are on trees. There are a lot
>>> of insects up there. Who ate them? It has to be somebody who acquired
>>> light bones, and later moved from tree to tree by flying. But animals
>>> that did that had beaks. So what were those beaks for? It fits with
>>> poking a tree bark.
>>>
>> Most of food isn't under tree bark to this day and so only few birds care
>> about breaking it. Feels unlikely that it was case on prehistorc times.
>> Other benefits (like for example better aerodynamics, convenience of
>> tidying and cleaning feathers) may be bigger pressures to evolve
>> beak than bark of trees.
>>
>>> So, on one hand you have lightweight, flying, on the other hand you
>>> have beaks, on those animals who flew. It can only be for poking tree
>>> bark, this is the connection, those two things are connected. It doesn't
>>> have to be such a radical poking like woodpeckers have, but this is a
>>> connection.
>>> And when they finally learnt to fly, well, this opened a lot of other
>>> possibilities, so those animals spread their niches.
>>>
>> Order of events might be was flight before beak. Earlier fossils
>> of paravians that did most likely fly (or at least glide) have teeth,
>> not beak yet.
>
>         Thanks for the info. In general, this is a competition, you
> eat, there is more birds than food, you dig deeper, you are forced to
> dig deeper, and bark is where this additional food is.
>         Compare this situation to my explanation of human kiss. Per my
> idea, we ate sea shellfish. You dive for shellfish, but near surface
> shellfish are first to be eaten. Then you have to dive deeper. You can
> go even deeper if your partner (whom you have to trust with your life,
> trust is important thing in human relationships) meet you half way up
> and gives you additional air. So, basically, the principle is, first you
> eat all the easily acquired food, but then you are forced to dig deeper.
> And also, initially there could be much more food in shallow waters,
> but, hey, you eat this out, you have to adapt for this small additional
> piece.

Ha, ha, there is one interesting thing, squirrels have adaptation to
go up and down the tree. I wouldn't say that birds could go down the
tree that easy, easier would be just to fly off, :) .
So, the difficult part actually is to go down, :) .

On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 15:31:52 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 16.8.2023. 13:40, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> > On 16.8.2023. 9:18, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> >> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 05:57:46 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>> On 16.8.2023. 4:46, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>> On 16.8.2023. 4:11, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>> On 8/15/23 5:06 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers
> >>>>>>> that do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that
> >>>>>>> matters for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special
> >>>>>>> anatomical adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod
> >>>>>>> skeleton if the comparison were apt.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for
> >>>>>>> attracting attention. It's called "drumming".
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make
> >>>>>> such faulty conclusions?
> >>>>>> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat
> >>>>>> various food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions
> >>>>>> that birds in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and
> >>>>>> had various behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend. Of course
> >>>>>> the first bird occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food,
> >>>>>> and had only one type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
> >>>>>> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical
> >>>>>> adaptations, in the beginning they were very similar to other similar
> >>>>>> dinosaurs. I mean, bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy
> >>>>>> all the niches that today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't
> >>>>>> eat honey, or fish, and didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye
> >>>>>> looked more like dogs. I mean, you are writing in the paleontology
> >>>>>> forum for god's sake, you got to have some basic understandings of
> >>>>>> those things. At least.
> >>>>>> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or
> >>>>>> are they drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older
> >>>>>> you get, the crazier you are.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I believe you are misunderstanding much of what I say. Woodpeckers are
> >>>>> very specialized and so are not a good model for the earliest birds. I
> >>>>> do suspect that many small theropods at mostly insects, but the chance
> >>>>> that they hunted them in a woodpecker-like way is nearly zero. And
> >>>>> that's not what beaks, in general, are for. Early birds and small
> >>>>> theropods do not have the skeletal features necessary for beating
> >>>>> their noses against trees.
> >>>>
> >>>> I am aware of the specializations that woodpecker have, I just
> >>>> don't think that it is necessary to have them early in the game,
> >>>> especially while insects are still large. Remember, the idea is that
> >>>> those two things, the diminishing of insects and the evolution of
> >>>> birds,
> >>>> are connected. So, at the very beginning you have large insects, and
> >>>> birds still not evolved, only peeking into the niche. So, birds
> >>>> adapt to
> >>>> insects, insects adapt to new conditions, to birds eating them.
> >>>> First it
> >>>> goes bird inaugural adaptation, then insect adaptation.
> >>>> Beaks could initially be adapted to similar things, like
> >>>> eating
> >>>> worms from the ground. Ground is softer. So, beaks, here, aren't
> >>>> actually crucial for flying. So this doesn't explain lightweight and
> >>>> flying, for lightweight and flying you need the second stage, climbing
> >>>> trees and moving from tree to tree, exactly like flying squirrels do.
> >>>
> >>> While we are at that, they don't need necessary to poke into bark,
> >>> initially they could just eat insects that are on trees. There are a lot
> >>> of insects up there. Who ate them? It has to be somebody who acquired
> >>> light bones, and later moved from tree to tree by flying. But animals
> >>> that did that had beaks. So what were those beaks for? It fits with
> >>> poking a tree bark.
> >>>
> >> Most of food isn't under tree bark to this day and so only few birds care
> >> about breaking it. Feels unlikely that it was case on prehistorc times.
> >> Other benefits (like for example better aerodynamics, convenience of
> >> tidying and cleaning feathers) may be bigger pressures to evolve
> >> beak than bark of trees.
> >>
> >>> So, on one hand you have lightweight, flying, on the other hand you
> >>> have beaks, on those animals who flew. It can only be for poking tree
> >>> bark, this is the connection, those two things are connected. It doesn't
> >>> have to be such a radical poking like woodpeckers have, but this is a
> >>> connection.
> >>> And when they finally learnt to fly, well, this opened a lot of other
> >>> possibilities, so those animals spread their niches.
> >>>
> >> Order of events might be was flight before beak. Earlier fossils
> >> of paravians that did most likely fly (or at least glide) have teeth,
> >> not beak yet.
> >
> > Thanks for the info. In general, this is a competition, you
> > eat, there is more birds than food, you dig deeper, you are forced to
> > dig deeper, and bark is where this additional food is.
>
From where you take that first birds were only single specie that ate
insects that hid under tree bark? Nature never ran out of insects of
wide variety and only some species of those live under tree bark.

> > Compare this situation to my explanation of human kiss. Per my
> > idea, we ate sea shellfish. You dive for shellfish, but near surface
> > shellfish are first to be eaten. Then you have to dive deeper. You can
> > go even deeper if your partner (whom you have to trust with your life,
> > trust is important thing in human relationships) meet you half way up
> > and gives you additional air. So, basically, the principle is, first you
> > eat all the easily acquired food, but then you are forced to dig deeper.
> > And also, initially there could be much more food in shallow waters,
> > but, hey, you eat this out, you have to adapt for this small additional
> > piece.
>
You mix up individuals with species. Individuals can't mutate beaks to
themselves because of being low on food. Instead when hunting or
gathering food takes more energy than you get from eating it then
your population shrinks because of hunger. That lets population of
your food to regrow back so few survivors of your population have
enough of food again.

> Ha, ha, there is one interesting thing, squirrels have adaptation to
> go up and down the tree. I wouldn't say that birds could go down the
> tree that easy, easier would be just to fly off, :) .
> So, the difficult part actually is to go down, :) .
>
Gravity is not for free anymore? The nuthatches seem to go down tree
head first like squirrels.

On 16.8.2023. 17:34, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 15:31:52 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 16.8.2023. 13:40, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> On 16.8.2023. 9:18, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>>>> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 05:57:46 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 4:46, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 4:11, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>> On 8/15/23 5:06 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers
>>>>>>>>> that do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that
>>>>>>>>> matters for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special
>>>>>>>>> anatomical adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod
>>>>>>>>> skeleton if the comparison were apt.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for
>>>>>>>>> attracting attention. It's called "drumming".
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make
>>>>>>>> such faulty conclusions?
>>>>>>>> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat
>>>>>>>> various food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions
>>>>>>>> that birds in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and
>>>>>>>> had various behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend. Of course
>>>>>>>> the first bird occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food,
>>>>>>>> and had only one type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
>>>>>>>> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical
>>>>>>>> adaptations, in the beginning they were very similar to other similar
>>>>>>>> dinosaurs. I mean, bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy
>>>>>>>> all the niches that today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't
>>>>>>>> eat honey, or fish, and didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye
>>>>>>>> looked more like dogs. I mean, you are writing in the paleontology
>>>>>>>> forum for god's sake, you got to have some basic understandings of
>>>>>>>> those things. At least.
>>>>>>>> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or
>>>>>>>> are they drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older
>>>>>>>> you get, the crazier you are.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I believe you are misunderstanding much of what I say. Woodpeckers are
>>>>>>> very specialized and so are not a good model for the earliest birds. I
>>>>>>> do suspect that many small theropods at mostly insects, but the chance
>>>>>>> that they hunted them in a woodpecker-like way is nearly zero. And
>>>>>>> that's not what beaks, in general, are for. Early birds and small
>>>>>>> theropods do not have the skeletal features necessary for beating
>>>>>>> their noses against trees.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I am aware of the specializations that woodpecker have, I just
>>>>>> don't think that it is necessary to have them early in the game,
>>>>>> especially while insects are still large. Remember, the idea is that
>>>>>> those two things, the diminishing of insects and the evolution of
>>>>>> birds,
>>>>>> are connected. So, at the very beginning you have large insects, and
>>>>>> birds still not evolved, only peeking into the niche. So, birds
>>>>>> adapt to
>>>>>> insects, insects adapt to new conditions, to birds eating them.
>>>>>> First it
>>>>>> goes bird inaugural adaptation, then insect adaptation.
>>>>>> Beaks could initially be adapted to similar things, like
>>>>>> eating
>>>>>> worms from the ground. Ground is softer. So, beaks, here, aren't
>>>>>> actually crucial for flying. So this doesn't explain lightweight and
>>>>>> flying, for lightweight and flying you need the second stage, climbing
>>>>>> trees and moving from tree to tree, exactly like flying squirrels do.
>>>>>
>>>>> While we are at that, they don't need necessary to poke into bark,
>>>>> initially they could just eat insects that are on trees. There are a lot
>>>>> of insects up there. Who ate them? It has to be somebody who acquired
>>>>> light bones, and later moved from tree to tree by flying. But animals
>>>>> that did that had beaks. So what were those beaks for? It fits with
>>>>> poking a tree bark.
>>>>>
>>>> Most of food isn't under tree bark to this day and so only few birds care
>>>> about breaking it. Feels unlikely that it was case on prehistorc times.
>>>> Other benefits (like for example better aerodynamics, convenience of
>>>> tidying and cleaning feathers) may be bigger pressures to evolve
>>>> beak than bark of trees.
>>>>
>>>>> So, on one hand you have lightweight, flying, on the other hand you
>>>>> have beaks, on those animals who flew. It can only be for poking tree
>>>>> bark, this is the connection, those two things are connected. It doesn't
>>>>> have to be such a radical poking like woodpeckers have, but this is a
>>>>> connection.
>>>>> And when they finally learnt to fly, well, this opened a lot of other
>>>>> possibilities, so those animals spread their niches.
>>>>>
>>>> Order of events might be was flight before beak. Earlier fossils
>>>> of paravians that did most likely fly (or at least glide) have teeth,
>>>> not beak yet.
>>>
>>> Thanks for the info. In general, this is a competition, you
>>> eat, there is more birds than food, you dig deeper, you are forced to
>>> dig deeper, and bark is where this additional food is.
>>
> From where you take that first birds were only single specie that ate
> insects that hid under tree bark? Nature never ran out of insects of
> wide variety and only some species of those live under tree bark.

And only some species can eat those. It isn't point in eating insects,
the point is that weight is deteriorating for climbing, the point is
that for eating insects in bark it is good to have beak. I mean, we do
have examples in today's world, flying squirrels and woodpecker. What
else would you need beak for? Eating fish? No. Eating meat? No.
Scavenging? No. Eating seeds? No. I mean, you can eat fish, meat,
scavenge, eat seeds with beaks too, but you can do all this with teeth
also. I mean, we even have the elongation of fingers, the Aye-Aye style,
in birds. So, in the beginning they could use finger, then they
developed beaks, so then fingers were used just to cling on trees, and
feathers regrew over the fingers.

>>> Compare this situation to my explanation of human kiss. Per my
>>> idea, we ate sea shellfish. You dive for shellfish, but near surface
>>> shellfish are first to be eaten. Then you have to dive deeper. You can
>>> go even deeper if your partner (whom you have to trust with your life,
>>> trust is important thing in human relationships) meet you half way up
>>> and gives you additional air. So, basically, the principle is, first you
>>> eat all the easily acquired food, but then you are forced to dig deeper.
>>> And also, initially there could be much more food in shallow waters,
>>> but, hey, you eat this out, you have to adapt for this small additional
>>> piece.
>>
> You mix up individuals with species. Individuals can't mutate beaks to
> themselves because of being low on food. Instead when hunting or
> gathering food takes more energy than you get from eating it then
> your population shrinks because of hunger. That lets population of
> your food to regrow back so few survivors of your population have
> enough of food again.

First, of course, the mutation idea is bogus, mutation is malfunction.
Species adapt. So, when you need more effort to obtain food, you adapt.
So, I would use a lot of energy if I would run after my food standing on
my arms, upside down. But then I would adapt to stand on my feet.
So, the idea that each species has an individual Adam, the origin of
species, a mutant, is completely wrong. We all can adapt, and the ones
who cannot, go extinct. I believe that it is you who mixes individuals
with species.

On 8/16/23 10:56 AM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> I mean, we do have examples in today's world, flying squirrels and
> woodpecker.
Flying squirrels don't have beaks, so what is this about? There are also
woodpecker finches and ai-ais, if you're keeping score.

On 16.8.2023. 20:18, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/16/23 10:56 AM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> I mean, we do have examples in today's world, flying squirrels and
>> woodpecker.
> Flying squirrels don't have beaks, so what is this about? There are also
> woodpecker finches and ai-ais, if you're keeping score.

Aren't we talking about the origin of birds, which, like, fly? So, see
the name, flying squirrels. It is about flying. I presume that ai-ai is
aye-aye.
The idea is going up and down a tree. Which is excellent environment
to originate flight. The cause is eating insects. Hence beaks.

On 8/16/23 12:07 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 16.8.2023. 20:18, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/16/23 10:56 AM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> I mean, we do have examples in today's world, flying squirrels and
>>> woodpecker.
>> Flying squirrels don't have beaks, so what is this about? There are
>> also woodpecker finches and ai-ais, if you're keeping score.
>
>         Aren't we talking about the origin of birds, which, like, fly?
> So, see the name, flying squirrels. It is about flying. I presume that
> ai-ai is aye-aye.
>         The idea is going up and down a tree. Which is excellent
> environment to originate flight. The cause is eating insects. Hence beaks.

Ah, I see. You jump from subject to subject in a very confusing way. Why
pick woodpeckers as examples of flight? And the sentence previous was
about eating insects in bark with beaks, and the next sentence is also
about eating insects in bark. How is anyone supposed to know you're
talking about flying in between?

If you want people to know what you're trying to say, you have to put
some logical structure into your paragraphs.

It seems very unlikely that the ancestral bird would have done anything
so specialized as finding insects under tree bark.

On 16.8.2023. 23:59, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/16/23 12:07 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 16.8.2023. 20:18, John Harshman wrote:
>>> On 8/16/23 10:56 AM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>> I mean, we do have examples in today's world, flying squirrels and
>>>> woodpecker.
>>> Flying squirrels don't have beaks, so what is this about? There are
>>> also woodpecker finches and ai-ais, if you're keeping score.
>>
>>          Aren't we talking about the origin of birds, which, like,
>> fly? So, see the name, flying squirrels. It is about flying. I presume
>> that ai-ai is aye-aye.
>>          The idea is going up and down a tree. Which is excellent
>> environment to originate flight. The cause is eating insects. Hence
>> beaks.
>
> Ah, I see. You jump from subject to subject in a very confusing way. Why
> pick woodpeckers as examples of flight? And the sentence previous was
> about eating insects in bark with beaks, and the next sentence is also
> about eating insects in bark. How is anyone supposed to know you're
> talking about flying in between?
>
> If you want people to know what you're trying to say, you have to put
> some logical structure into your paragraphs.
>
> It seems very unlikely that the ancestral bird would have done anything
> so specialized as finding insects under tree bark.

Hm, you are right, I should put something that shows clearly what I am
talking about. Maybe I should've titled the thread "How birds emerged",
this could help.
I don't think that eating insects in times when insects were of
considerable size, would be so strange. On the other hand, didn't they
evolve a specialized, new, never seen before, feature, beaks? If they
weren't specialized, if they were doing the standard stuff, they would
look like all other animals around them, they wouldn't have special
features. And, as far as I can see, I see different animals eating meat,
I see various animals eating fish, I see animals eating seeds, but all
the animals that search for insects in bark have really special
features, woodpecker, aye-aye. Yes, you need special feature for this,
having beak is exactly the special feature that you need for this (along
with elongated fingers), and look at that, birds have them both. Now,
who would say. Well, John Harshman, for sure, wouldn't.