May 7, 2015

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Feathered Dinosaurs on Post-its

Sometimes, the pathway to a new idea becoming universally accepted requires a steady stream of little nudges, small pebbles thrown into the lake.

By Glendon Mellow

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

Sometimes, the pathway to a new idea becoming universally accepted requires a steady stream of little nudges, small pebbles thrown into the lake. Plink plink plink. Throw enough, and one day there’ll be an island of knowledge. People will assume it has always been there.

We haven’t known about feathered dinosaurs for all that long, really. Cultural acceptance by lay people may not come for another generation. But little nudges have been happening for a while. Paleo illustrators have been doing a tremendous job taking the available evidence and depicting almost photo-real illustrations of all manner of feathers, from subdued camouflage to gaudy sexual display. Those illustrations are boulders, shoring up the island of knowledge. But it’s still going to take a steady stream of pebbles.

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The irrepressible cartoonist and poet Talcott Starr threw these pebbles into the Twitter lake recently. A few feathered theropods, sketched in ink on Post-it notes. Little images that will filter through some eyeballs and brains and make feathered dinosaurs just a little more normal. I wanted to post them here to share the charming normalcy of feathered dinosaurs on Post-its.

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Find more work by Talcott Starr:

 

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