Tianyulong

This is a picture of lagosuchus, a close relative of dinosaurs, not the newly discovered Tianyulong, an ornithschian dinosaur covered in protofeathers. (Click here for a picture of Tianyulong by Lida Xing.) I drew this picture years ago to illustrate the idea that dinosaurs are descended from fuzzy warm-blooded creatures with elevated metabolisms. 20 years ago it was a reasonable idea, but there was no evidence for (or against) fuzz on small dinosaurs. (Scaly skin was known for some large dinosaurs, but large mammals are also often naked.) Greg Paul's comments on the Dinosaur Mailing List add some important information missed by the news stories covering this new discovery.

Intelligent Designs

I have uploaded some pictures of the intelligent species along with theories about their origins - specifically their own theories in their own words. One theory based on religious tradition claims that all living things share a common ancestry while the other theory - based on information available to scientists in the Squawk setting - is skeptical about this claim and suggests that complex machines like animals were probably created by simpler machines.

More pictures and controversy...