Page 210 - Once Upon a Time There Was Darwinism

Chinese fossils have that strange halo of what has become
known as dino-fuzz, but although that material has been ''ho-
mologized'' with avian feathers, the arguments are far less
than convincing. 151
After this statement, he says that Prum showed preju-
dice in his article in Scientific American:

Prum's view is shared by many paleontologists: birds are di-
Once Upon a Time There Was Darwinism
nosaurs; therefore, any filamentous material preserved in dro-
maeosaurs must represent protofeathers. 152

According to Feduccia, one reason why this prejudice
was refuted was that traces of this dino-fuzz were also found
on fossils that have no provable relationship with birds. In
the same article, Feduccia says:

Most important, ''dino-fuzz'' is now being discovered in a
number of taxa, some unpublished, but particularly in a
Chinese pterosaur [flying reptile] and a therizinosaur [a car-
nivorous dinosaur]. . . Most surprisingly, skin fibers very
closely resembling dino-fuzz have been discovered in a
Jurassic ichthyosaur [extinct marine reptile] and described in
detail. Some of those branched fibers are exceptionally close in
morphology to the so called branched protofeathers (''Prum
Protofeathers'') described by Xu [a Chinese paleontologist]. . .
That these so-called protofeathers have a widespread distribu-
tion in archosaurs [a Mesozoic reptile] is evidence alone that
they have nothing to do with feathers. 153

In the past, Feduccia says, certain residue was found in
the area of these fossils, but it was shown to be inorganic mat-
ter with no relation to the fossil:
One is reminded of the famous fernlike markings on the

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