Came here to ask the same question. I even read the entire article hoping they would mention that, but nope. In mainstream news media, i guess dinos are all still lizards or whatever.
🦖🤓 While ceratopsian dinosaurs (this one, triceratops, etc.) shared a common ancestor with the theropods (t-rex, raptors, etc.), they are non-avian and have not been discovered, as of yet, to have had feathered structures. However, a few species did have bristle-like structures on their tails. 🤓🦖
To clarify, all traditional dinosaurs are non-avian. We use non avisn dinosaurs to talk about the extinct ones since if you say "dinosaurs" evolutionarily you have to include birds which often we don't want to. It is true that ceratopsians are more distant from the bird line than theropods.
Thanks for the additional info! Sorry about my lame amateur explanation. 😅
Out of curiosity, is there an all encompassing term for the extinct bird line of dinos? Just the theropod group, or is there a different term?
Not a problem, was just clarifying.There can't be an evolutionarily correct term that includes bird line dinos but not birds, but there a lot of group names that work for birds related dinos plus birds- theropods, coelurosaurs, maniraptorans are all more specific groups of dinos + birds
I think Protoceratops bristles are speculative, for now, but Psittacosaurus did (fossil evidence). It's such a cool feature that folks like to stick them on other ceratopsians. However, I'm not a paleontologist, just an artist who really likes to draw dinos, so I could be mistaken. 😅
Thank you, Natalie. I am aware that some dinos are non-avian, but i don't know enough to know which. I appreciate the reply. My complaint was more on them not specifying. Although maybe I'm an amateur who is just being a tad too prickly about the whole thing.
