Talk:Psittacosaurus

Tail hairs/spines on Psittacosaurus?

Apparently there has been a relatively recent fossil discovery of spine-like hairs along the tail of psittacosaurus. It was published in Nature and later on a more detailed examination in Naturwissenschaften [1]

--BobBobtheBob 19:05, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Minor aesthetic issue...

There's a lot of white space in the taxobox with the picture set to 250px. 200px only makes it a little smaller and streamlines the whole thing. As others are pretty heavily invested in this article I'm going to refrain from changing this myself. Just throwing it out there. :) Dinoguy2 14:55, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Good suggestion, I'll change it. Feel free to make any changes you think would improve the article. It's not "my" article after all, or anyone else's. Sheep81 23:17, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Picture

Thanks to User:Brian0918 we have a great new picture for the taxobox, drawn by Rainer_Zenz from German Wikipedia. The original picture was moved into the text. Originally it was in the Description section, but I felt it better illustrated the tail bristles, plus there was need for an image down there. If anyone has other ideas, go ahead and implement them. Thank you! Sheep81 08:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Funkynusayri recently removed this image on the grounds that it was derivative of a copyrighted work and "uninteresting." I'm not sure about the permissions issue here, but if we're replacing the main image, the mounted specimen doesn't strike me as an ideal substitute--while it's good in that it's a photo of a real specimen, it's a bit dull and hard to make out detail at that size. What about using the (really striking, IMO) illustration down in the integument section? I think it does a great job of "summing up" current knowledge of this genus, and is almost reminiscent of the Ernst Haeckel illustrations used in articles such as Turtle and Lizard. Dinoguy2 (talk) 00:48, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The current image is even more "uninteresting" than the first and really doesn't show anything. At least the skull image could be identified as a Psittacosaurus at first glance. I'll change it to one of Arthur's images... the one in the integument section is nice but might not be completely accurate given Lingham-Soliar's recent work, which I have yet to read (working on that). Sheep81 (talk) 02:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Fossil.

• Ah, ok, by "interesting" I mean that the fossil is positioned in the way it was found, therefore it is closer to the actual posture of a living Psittacosaurus than for example a skeleton mounted by humans. But yeah, I agree that Arthur's image is the more obvious choice. I found the previous image uninteresting for aesthetic reasons, but wasn't going to replace it due to that, but it seemed familiar to me, so I looked up Psittacosaurus in my Danish edition of "The Ultimate Dinosaur Book" and realised the drawing was traced directly off, not just based on, the photo of a skull found there. Here's the drawing[2] and here's the photo[3]. That makes it a derivative work, and "illegal".[4] In fact, if you look closely, the original photo is visible underneath the drawing! Also, seems like Dorling Kindersley charge money just for downloading the image:[5]

Feel free to revert all my edits on that matter though, my stance on it isn't exactly strong, but I thought copyright issues would be more important to clear out on featured articles than on regular ones. Funkynusayri (talk) 10:57, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh no, I don't want even the hint of copyright issues on this page. Good looking out, I never suspected. I just didn't think the replacement was good for the taxobox. It would be great to see somewhere else in the article though, if you can find space for it without being crowded. Sheep81 (talk) 20:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

• I'll take a look at that. By the way, I nominated the previous taxobox image for deletion on Commons, and it seems like it was a clear copyright violation according to the guys there too.[6] Funkynusayri (talk) 21:17, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
• Could it (the fossil) maybe be placed next to the text in the classification section? Also, maybe the drawing of the type skull in the description section could be put in the taxobox, as the current taxobox drawing is already featured twice on the page (already in the compilation of heads). Funkynusayri (talk) 15:51, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

New research

Someone might want to look at a new article "Endocranial morphology of psittacosaurs". Lejean2000 11:26, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

400 individuals

Where does the 400 specimen figure come from? Xu and Norell 2006 reported over a thousand specimens in the Yixian Lujiatun beds alone! Dinoguy2 (talk) 11:59, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Is this true?

According to this article I read, some paleontologists believe that this animal's quills aren't real, and that the animal died on a plant. Is there any information about this idea, or is it outdated? Star Hound For those who want to see the article, go here: http://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/blah-blah-feathered-ornithischians-yawn/ (talk) 04:30, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Huh. Is that published, or what people have said off the record? (I haven't paid a lot of attention to the issue) J. Spencer (talk) 23:35, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I've seen this idea on a few blogs but as far as I know it's never been suggested in print. None of the blogs cite any evidence for features that could identify the quills as plant material. One blog even suggests they're not plants but long-bodied nematode like parasites! Right now this all looks like wild speculation with no evidence behind it. MMartyniuk (talk) 00:36, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Forelimb function

Senter (2007) says that Psittacosaurus was an obligate biped, yet nearly every full-bodied reconstruction in this article has it walking on four legs. Edit pending? Albertonykus (talk) 12:19, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Probably, though as it was also likely a burrower some exceptions can probably be made based on posture. Too bad, that one with the offspring is awesome. MMartyniuk (talk) 23:48, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I read somewhere it couldn't pronate its hands either, which makes those poses impossible anyway... FunkMonk (talk) 00:04, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, not even Triceratops fully pronated its hands. Ceratopsian hands stuck out to the side, like pterosaurs, when parasattagial. (But since the inner fingers are fare larger and more robust than the middle and outer, they *look* pronated, basically achieving the same effect by distorting the shape of the manus). MMartyniuk (talk) 01:14, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Speaking of which, a lot of the ceratopsian reconstructions on Wikipedia (not just this article) appear to show them with pronated hands. Albertonykus (talk) 08:36, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I fixed AW's Triceratops[7] in photoshop but he produced so many ceratopsians I haven't had time or patience to do them all. They're all inaccurate in the feet i'm afraid. MMartyniuk (talk) 22:26, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I noticed that one. Perhaps we should just remove them from the articles for the time being. Albertonykus (talk) 02:41, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Dinoguy, could you maybe erase the hand that touches the ground in your size diagram? That would be enough to fix that image I think. FunkMonk (talk) 13:40, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

On this topic, the current taxobox image looks very nice, but is it me or are the radius and ulna partially crossed? How rigid were the arms? FunkMonk (talk) 17:00, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Biochron and "index fossil" are not synonyms

The article cited does not call the Psittacosaurus an "index fossil," instead, it uses two sets of index fossils (without Psittacosaurus in either set) and the first appearance datum and last appearance datum of Psittacosaurus and its field distribution to define a Pisttacosaurus biochron for the Early Cretaceous of East Asia, not mention "central Asia."

It is not an index fossil, but defines a biochron according to the citation. It is not Central Asian, it is an East Asian biochron. Also, the sediments are Lower Cretaceous, the time is Early Cretaceous.

This sentence should be changed to read:

"The abundance of this dinosaur in the fossil record has led to establishing the Psittacosaurus biochron for the Early Cretaceous of east Asia.

See 978-0231084833, pp. 168-170 and the cited source, Lucas, Spencer G. (2006). The Psittacosaurus biochron, Early Cretaceous of Asia. Cretaceous Research 27: 189–198.

I posted this also on the main page. There are many other problems with this article, but I don't have time to go into them.

--68.107.134.74 (talk) 01:19, 7 January 2013 (UTC)