#integument

[englishlistwords]

integument

n. A natural outer covering or coat, such as the skin of an animal or the membrane enclosing an organ.

n. The outermost layer or layers of an ovule.

n. In general, a covering; that which covers or clothes.

[lsmontoya]

What would you choose: fur, scales, or feathers?

Human skin is truly amazing. Did you know it's the biggest organ of our bodies? If we "took off" our skin, it would weigh around 4 kg! 😮 

Still, for fantasy or sci-fi worldbuilding purposes, you might want to explore other options: For example, what would you choose: fur, scales, or feathers? 

Fur serves for camouflage, temperature regulation (especially when cold), and enhancing the sense of touch. Maybe your sentient beings with fur evolved in cold worlds that need the extra layer or live in an environment when they can be easily hunted down by predators.

Scales are useless for thermal regulation but protect the body from water loss and abrasion when moving in terrestrial mediums. In aquatic mediums, they reduce friction with water and allow the animal to move or swim faster. So your sentient beings with scales might be amphibians or live underwater.

And finally, feathers. It was thought that only birds had feathers, but now it's believed that some dinosaurs also had feathers. Feathers are necessary for insulation, temperature regulation, and flight. Your sentient beings with feathers may not necessarily fly. Still, they can be useful for insulation and communication. For example, a particular feather pattern may be the equivalent of a name. Or, they may also use a sort of feather display to find their significant other. 😉

Another curious option that I didn't want to leave behind is the exoskeleton. Unlike vertebrates, who have their skeletons on the inside, arthropods have them outside, covering their bodies. Exoskeletons primarily protect the insect with a hard protein coat; however, they limit how big they can grow. So, sentient beings with exoskeletons might have rigid movements compared to vertebrate beings and may grow slower and not as big as other beings in your world. But the tradeoff is that they would wear "armors,"  probably with the beautiful iridescent colors of the insect world.

So, what would you choose for your beings? Fur, scales, feathers… or an exoskeleton?

[ask-palaeoblr]

What do we know about the Integument of Sauropods?

[duckmoss]

I get HYPE for integument and adipose tissue tbh

The hypodermis is the layer of the skin furthest down, and the left picture is a general picture of an integument slide with keratinized stratified squamous epithelia 😍

[linkfinds]

𝄞 DOO DOO DOO DOO! ♪

[ornithopsis]

A paper came out last night describing skin impressions from Tyrannosaurus rex and some of its close relatives, purporting to show that tyrannosaurids were scaly rather than feathered.

This graphic shows where these skin impressions were found, as well as four skin impressions of unknown position (shown at bottom left). You may note that these impressions are very, very small and cover only a small part of the body.

Taking a closer look at the hips and tail, however, does reveal something interesting: a small skin impression shows scales over the hips. Unlike the tail, neck, and belly impressions, this is from a place that is shown as feathered in, for example, the Saurian T. rex. 

Does this mean that Tyrannosaurus was scaly after all? We don’t know. As the paper itself notes, the back could have had a “cape” of feathers, and some fossils, such as Juravenator, show that scales and feathers can be intermixed. Maybe there were feathers between the scales that fell off before fossilization. However, this paper does make a fully-feathered Tyrannosaurus seem less likely than before.

Both feather and scale fans should be happy about this paper: there’s new evidence of scaly skin on tyrannosaurs for the latter, so scaly tyrannosaurs are scientifically justifiable again, but that evidence also doesn’t rule out a mostly-feathered body, so feather fans can keep drawing fluffy tyrants.

See also: my similar post on Carnotaurus.

The silhouette is by @thewoodparable, used with permission.

[artistic-daspletosaurus]

I think your suggestion of only the underside of later tyrannosaurs' tails having scales is possible, but I'm not aware of any known dinosaur species that are like this instead of having fully-feathered or fully-scaly tails?

To be honest, I am not aware of a specimen with a mixture of both, but I wouldn’t rule out, that this was impossible for dinosaurs.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Is there any dinosaur that you liked more scaly than feathered?

CARNOTAURUS should NOT have the POOF

WE KnoW ITS INTEGUMENT FROM THE FOSSILS IT HAD THE SCALES

[anatomicaletymology]

Integument

From Latin integumentum (covering). The integument refers to the skin and its derivatives.

[laurenrakes]

Squid study in watercolor

[artistic-daspletosaurus]

I think it's possible that Nanuqsaurus had a full coat of feathers like Yutyrannus had instead of a partial coat like other later tyrannosaurs likely had, because like the former and unlike the later it inhabited a polar environment.

I am on the same side when it comes to thinking about how much Nanuqsaurus could have been feathered. So, I gave my Nanuqsaurus a full coat. http://carnosaurian.tumblr.com/post/154300850430/dinomas-day-11-nanuqsaurus-having-a-snowball

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

I know that we are getting all kinds of dinosaur feather impressions thanks to china, but I would like to know how many scale impressions did we got before that. Was that a common finding? Or did people just assumed that since the skulls looked reptilian dinos were mostly scaly.

Well there were actually quite a few skin impressions found along the way that did inform this idea of dinosaurs being scaly. Of course the large ammount of these impressions as opposed to feathery ones could very well be due to how much harder it is for feathers to stick arround long enough for us to have good evidence of them.

We had a bunch of Hadrosaur skin impressions, some Ankylosaur ones, Triceratops, Carnotaurus… in short there were a few!

(source)

P.S. Hola Ruy! : D

~Ryuu

[y35pm]

Haar

Haar

aus DocCheck Flexikon, dem Medizinlexikon zum Mitmachen

Synonyme: Haarorgan, pilus, capillus Englisch: hair

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1 Definition

2 Einteilung

3 Physiologie

4 Histologie

4.1 Haarschaft

4.2 Haarwurzel

4.3 Haarfollikel

1 Definition

Haare sind fadenförmige Hautanhangsgebilde, die zum größten Teil aus Keratin bestehen. Sie kommen mit wenigen Ausnahmen auf nahezu allen Hautarealen

[assuming-dinosaur]

Quick 'n' dirty picture showing what I know off of the top of my head of tyrannosaurid integument--green is glabrous, red is scaly. Images are from Phylopic, top is Tyrannosaurus rex (Scott Hartman), middle is Tarbosaurus baatar (Matt Martyniuk), bottom is Albertosaurus libratus (Craig Dylke). More impressions are known for Tyrannosaurus rex and Albertosaurus libratus; Tyrannosaurus rex's integument might be glabrous rather than scaly.

[artistic-daspletosaurus]

I like to draw Compsognathus but I'm not quite certain if Juravenator, which was only partially feathered, or Sinosauropteryx, which had a full coat of feathers, is a better analogue for its hypothetical feathers.

There seems to be quite a variety of how much feathering each species could have possessed in life. Some scientists doubt that Juravenator is a member of the Compsognathidae, but I think it is safe to depict Compsognathus with a simple, downy coat of feathers, while the amount of the plumage might be up to debate. I personally would use Sinosauropteryx as a role model due to its anatomical closeness.

[wooingwithwords]

integument

integument n. an external covering

"It's bucketing down outside, Lola. But don't worry, I have grabbed your waterproof integument and we can still have a frolic in the rain."

Also a useful euphemism for a condom, which you can use in front of your mum, dad, or fragile ageing aunt (the word, that is, not the condom).