Page 552 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

evolved from dinosaurs, avidly supported ever since John
Ostrom first proposed it in the 1970s, rested on no scientific
evidence. Feduccia also gave a detailed account of how such a
theory was impossible, and explained a very important fact con-

cerning the dino-birds said to have been found in China: It is
not clear that the structures found on the fossil reptiles, pre-
sented as feathered dinosaurs, are feathers at all. On the con-
trary, there is much evidence that this so-called "dino-fuzz"

has no relation to feathers. Feduccia writes:

Having studied most of the specimens said to sport
protofeathers, I, and many others, do not find any credible
evidence that those structures represent protofeathers.
Many Chinese fossils have that strange halo of what has

become known as dino-fuzz, but although that material
has been ''homologized'' with avian feathers, the argu-
The "dino-bird" tale in the media has no scientific basis. ments are far less than convincing. 151
Scientific American, March 2003
After this statement, he says that Prum
showed prejudice in his article in Scientific
American:

Prum's view is shared by many paleontologists: birds are dinosaurs; therefore, any filamentous
material preserved in dromaeosaurs 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Most important, ''dino-fuzz'' is now being discovered in a number of taxa, some unpublished, but particularly in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 carnivorous 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 distribution 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 matter with no rela-
tion to the fossil:

One is reminded of the famous fernlike markings on the Solnhofen fos-
sils known as dendrites. Despite their plantlike outlines, these features
are now known to be inorganic structures caused by a solution of man-

ganese from within the beds that reprecipitated as oxides along cracks
or along bones of fossils. 154

Another interesting point is that all the fossil "feathered di-
nosaurs" were found in China. How could these fossils have
come to light in China, but nowhere else in the world? And why
weren't any feathers or feather shafts found on these di-

nosaurs, claimed by evolutionists to be feathered, in these
Chinese formations that could so well preserve even such a
structure as the dino-fuzz? The answer is plain: It's because Ornithologist Alan Feduccia opposes

they didn't possess any avian feathers. Feduccia writes: the "dino-bird" myth.

550 Atlas of Creation Vol. 3