Talk:Buitreraptor

This appears to be the correct spelling. CambridgeBayWeather 19:43, 19 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Removing from category Feathered Dinosaurs, which requires fossil evidence (even though Buitreraptor was certainly feathered in life).--Dinoguy2 05:05, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

That is strange. Just because there is no fossil evidence does not mean that it did not have feathers. There is no fossil evedence to say Smilodon had fur, but it certaintly had fur in life. Why? Because its closest living relatives are Big Cats, which also have fur. The same is true for Buitreraptor.--Dinomaster10231 (talk) 14:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Right, but the Feathered Dinosaurs category was set up for the purpose of tracking only dinosaurs with direct evidence of feathers (impressions, quill knobs, etc.), rather than all species inferred to have them. Dinoguy2 (talk) 15:06, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Diet
Considering the size and very small teeth, hasn't anybody considered, he might mainly have been an insect/arthropod eater? Of course, very small lizards then likely too.--Demoiselle Clarisse (talk) 21:54, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * It seems a little too big for invertebrates being the main diet. FunkMonk (talk) 22:08, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Red coloration?
Does anyone know why the fossil is so red? Should that info be in the article? Specusci 12:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, if you refer to the picture shown, that is of a cast. This cast is rather orange; the pinkish hue of the picture should be blamed on lighting conditions and an imperfect digital colour correction. The original fossils were probably found in sandstone with a high iron oxide content and thus were tinged by the red ochre.--MWAK (talk) 08:33, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * There are similarly reddish fossils known from the Nemegt Formation, so it is probably due to the geology of the fossil. MMartyniuk (talk) 12:57, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * On a related note, isn't the pink colour of the restoration unlikely? FunkMonk (talk) 22:07, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I noticed the restoration with pink feathers was recently removed. I don't know if we can really know if that colour is unlikely. I've seen it expressed that carotenoids in feathers only occur in Neoaves, but in fact this is not true. The following paper reports carotenoids in feathers of more "basal" birds such as Galliformes and Anseriformes: This paper also mentions the possibility that the ability to absorb carotenoids into feathers might have evolved independently in different types of birds. Is anyone in a position to say whether the ability to colour feathers with carotenoids is unlikely/impossible for non-avian dinosaurs? Considering that this ability might have evolved separate times, or if it only evolved once no-one knows how far back in the evolution of dinosaurs it evolved? I think it's a bit of a shame to remove that life restoration of Buitreraptor as it's nice and it's the only good one available on Wikipedia, and I'm not sure it's warranted just because of the colour of its feathers. If the colour of the feathers really is unlikely, could it not be recoloured? As I mentioned in the Talk section below, the image on the Buitreraptor Wikipedia article that appears most likely to be inaccurate is the one under "Discovery and naming" which shows fingers that are too short. 90.192.99.122 (talk) 19:18, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The paper does have interesting implications, but it also argued that the ancestral state reconstruction for Neoaves as a whole lacked carotenoids. While I agree that it is possible for carotenoid absorption to have evolved independently in certain non-avian dinosaurs, such an assumption is not exactly parsimonius considering that iridescence was probably preferable in many stem-bird groups. In addition, the ability to absorb carotenoids requires a source of carotenoids in the diet, whether it be directly from fruits or indirectly from insects or krill. Buitreraptor and other unenlagiines were probably fish-eaters, so I doubt that enough carotenoids could be transferred to account for an all-pink coloration. To further the point, the only modern birds capable of achieving such a coloration are flamingos, scarlet ibises, and spoonbills, all of which are specialized planktonivores with a constant source of carotenoids in their diet, and ecologically distant from Buitreraptor. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 03:01, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It seems to me the sample size for feather colouration in non-avian dinosaurs is too small to know whether "iridescence was probably preferable in many stem-bird groups". Are there even any known feather colourations from the late Cretaceous? I don't know of any, and if there aren't then that's a huge gap in time without known colouration for continuously evolving groups. As the paper on carotenoids I linked to says, "Ancestral state reconstructions are bound by several caveats. For example, extinction can have a dramatic impact on ancestral state reconstructions that are based entirely on living taxa." It seems quite possible that carotenoids in the feathers of Mesozoic dinosaurs could have been widespread, but this has become hidden by the extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous which wiped out many feathered lineages. The following blog post comments on the paper, saying, "An analysis published in 2014 estimated that in living clades of birds, carotenoid-pigmented feathers have evolved at least 13 times (Thomas et al. 2014). Given the widespreadness and plasticity of this characteristic, it seems quite unlikely to suggest non-avian dinosaur never used it. It is certainly in the realm of plausible speculation, for both feathered and scaly species.": As Matthew Martyniuk mentioned in the following link, carotenoids can be obtained from a diet of certain fish:
 * In any case, my understanding is pink feathers aren't only achievable from carotenoids. According to the following guide, porphyrins can produce pink feathers, and these are found in a range of extant birds: I'm glad there's finally a discussion happening on the pink Buitreraptor image, and that information on the Buitreraptor page has started being updated! Thanks for the update you made which included linking the new papers on the Buitreraptor article. I plan to update other parts of the article that need it, unless anyone else does it first. 2A02:C7D:B943:5F00:E6CE:8FFF:FE0A:2EA4 (talk) 03:48, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I just changed the colour to greyish, even if the colour was possible, it doesn't make much ecological sense. FunkMonk (talk) 17:39, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Updating the Buitreraptor page
As mentioned near the end of this blog post, more of Buitreraptor has been described, and as a consequence some parts of this Wikipedia article are now outdated. One thing that stands out is the fingers. This Wikipedia article currently says, "The fingers were proportionarly shorter than in other dromaeosaurids, and of essentially the same length, contrary to most of its relatives, which had fingers of different length, with the second finger being considerably longer." The blog post I linked to links to several monographs for the skeleton of Buitreraptor. I'm not able to access the one for the skull, or the one for the "body" in the link provided in the blog post, but looking elsewhere this appears to be the monograph for the body: This monograph shows what a nearly complete manus of Buitreraptor is actually like and says, "In Buitreraptor manual phalanges and metacarpals are very long and slender. When compared with the dromaeosaurids Deinonychus and Velociraptor all available elements are proportionally longer, with exception of ungual phalanges which are modest and proportionally smaller in Buitreraptor."

Besides contradicting what the Wikipedia article currently says about the fingers of Buitreraptor, some of the images in the Wikipedia article also appear to show an outdated reconstruction of Buitreraptor. Currently, all the photos in the Wikipedia article are of the Field Museum skeleton which has fingers that are too short. Perhaps one could get away with pretending they are being foreshortened, but I don't think that's possible with this photo: I think it could be good to replace that photo, which also shows Buitreraptor's head blurry, with one of the photos of the Royal Ontario Museum skeleton (which has longer fingers) on Wikimedia Commons here:

The 2008 skeletal by Jaime Headden in the Wikipedia article showing the known remains of Buitreraptor appears to be somewhat dated now. I'm not sure if it could be sufficient to modify the caption to say it shows only some known remains of Buitreraptor? Near the end of the monograph I linked to, it shows a skeletal reconstruction of Buitreraptor showing known elements which it says is "Modiﬁed from Jaime Headden, 2008". It's interesting to compare the two and see the changes, although the new skeletal in the monograph appears to have a mistake in not including the first toe even though parts of the first toe of Buitreraptor are shown and described prior in the same monograph!

If no-one else wishes to, I would be willing to make the updates to the Buitreraptor Wikipedia article, but I'm not sure if I can use the Researchgate monograph as a reference since it says "article in press", and I can't access the published version:

Another part of the Wikipedia article that is outdated is the following: After the holotype and paratype are mentioned, it says, "The two other specimens have remained undescribed." However, another 2018 paper on Buitreraptor describes three more specimens, one of which is the one that's extensively described in the monograph I linked to previously (MPCN-PV-598), here: 2A02:C7D:B943:5F00:E6CE:8FFF:FE0A:2EA4 (talk) 18:25, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, the Headden image caption could be modified that it only shows bones known up to a certain date, or which specimens it is based on. I can also modify the fingers in the silhouette. FunkMonk (talk) 17:52, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I've modified the caption for the skeletal so it's similar to the one on the Avimimus article. I think this way is the most informative, as it makes it clear that more elements of Buitreraptor are known. 90.192.99.122 (talk) 22:02, 21 October 2018 (UTC)