How exactly is the sailed Amargasaurus a debunked myth? To my knowledge, the only "proof" that it didn't have sails was the claim that it would make the neck too stiff to bend properly... which is based on the assumption that Amargasaurus's neck (and sauropods in general) needed to be extra bendy...
The shape of the neural spines would make it very hard to support a skin sail. In dinosaurs that we know had a sail, their spines were flat to help support layers of skin over them. Amargasaurus's spines were rounded, it just wouldn't work anywhere near as well and if it evolved to have sails then it would have evolved flat neural spines. It just does not add up lmao
You don't need to debunk something that really has no support to begin with. The sail is simply speculation at this point. There is no real reason to assume it had such a thing.
Well considering it likely wouldn't be much more than decorative, possibly little more than skin, it wouldn't need a whole lot of support to begin with...
Pretty sure everything regarding the spines is strictly speculative at this point... even the idea they were spikes...
This is simply false. Much is speculation. And there are things we will never know about dinosaurs. But there are also many things we can make educated guesses for or things we know pretty conclusively.
For example: We know what much of what the skin of Triceratops looks like because there are known skin imprints for large parts of the body. There is very little interpretaion at play there.
Yes, but that's physical evidence. That's all that's really conclusive. And how much of our knowledge of dinosaurs are from physical evidence? Bones and a bit of skin. That's it.
You just don't have exposed bone of any kind on any creature. If a creature has something that resembles a horn or a spike, it's going to be covered in keratin. That's just a rule of nature. We do not have any evidence supporting the sails, but we do have evidence supporting keratin covered spikes just based on very basic understanding of how animals work. We have the most supporting evidence for spikes, so we should go with spikes. That's just how paleontology works. If we come across supporting evidence for an idea that was built out of entire speculation, then sure. I'll give you that. But until then, keratinous spikes for defense are just the more likely possibility.
We may not know some things for sure, but we can get pretty damn close. Paleontology isn't about what dinosaurs were like 100%, it's about getting as close as we possibly can based on what has the most supporting evidence. And we don't just take evidence from the specific creature, we look at evidence from close relatives as well, and patterns shared within clades. Many dinosaurs we are missing basically entire bodies of, but we can still recreate them and estimate their dimensions with cross referencing and knowledge of how the creatures as a whole worked in general. Nobody says it's perfect. Parasaurolophus, a dinosaur we thought we basically had nailed down for several years, apparently looked slightly different from what we thought because we gained new evidence. So it's not perfect, but it's not about being perfect. It's just about using what we currently have to get as close as possible.
While I would agree that keratinous spikes are probably most likely... Deer actually do have exposed bone. Their antlers, while really weird and regrowing, are exposed bone. It's covered by a type of skin while it grows, but when they are done growing they lose the skin and their antlers are exposed. These are outliers of course. But there will likely be some instances where some prehistoric animal will have had some type of really weird adaptation that is unique for that group. And in many cases we will never even know about that specific adaptation. Though sometimes we're lucky and we'll find things like the skin membrane of Scansoriopterygids in Yi QI.
All I'm saying is, nature surprises us sometimes.
Yes, I agree nature can surprise us sometimes, but that argument isn't as solid as you might think. A single family of mammals, unrelated to dinosaurs, that exposes the bone by force. The layer of skin does not just "fall off", the deer forcefully tear it off by scratching and scraping against hard surfaces. And then the bones fall off entirely and regrow, covered in a layer of skin, unexposed until they are forced to. Amargasaurus's spines were a permanent part of the creature's life cycle, and we have no reason to speculate any kind of similar behavior comparable to deer. We have no evidence of this behavior or adaptation in ANY dinosaur for that matter. If a ceratopsian loses or damages it's horn in combat, and bone becomes exposed, the ceratopsian might receive an infection because that is a permanent structure that isn't meant to be exposed. It's just not how dinosaurs work.
Your argument does very little to support the theory of sails other than the "we don't know for sure" argument, which isn't how you try to figure out what a creature looked like, especially when we do have evidence to support a side that is mostly unpopular in pop-media just because people thinks it looks lame, while that same side is well supported by the majority of paleontologists.
Amargasaurus is mainly known from its depictions of having a sail and I feel like that is the the appeal of it. Keep in mind this is JP/JW, the dinosaurs arent really meant to be accurate but cater more to how they are popularly known. I dont really care how it will look if it gets in but to be honest with you it almost without a doubt will have a sail of some sort considering they have already released a toy based off that depiction.
I think you might be kinda missing my point. I did not make any solid statement about Amargasaurus. I merely agreed that keratinous spikes are most likely because that seems like the default.
The only real point I made is that there will be exceptions to rules here and there. This does not necessarily pertain to Amargasaurus at all.
You're only seeing a sail because artists copy each other. And I don't agree that's how they are mainly known. Adding a sail to it would be just another in the long line of copied designs in palaeoart without any evidence to back it up. That being said, I wouldn't mind that much if Amargasaurus was added with a sail. But there is really no good reason to have it with sail.
That logic is so flawed I'm just not even going to argue against it. Wasted too much of my time on this thread already
Tons of the latest original JWE designs have seemingly aimed for a more accurate realistic approach to the creatures. Giving the Amargasaurus sails would literally go backwards on what they've been setting up. The toys also are featuring a feathered Majungasaurus. Are the toys really to be trusted at this point?Yeah i'm sorry bout that. In case you couldn't tell somehow I'm a HUGE supporter for Keratinous Spikes over a Sail and I just got defensive because almost nobody outside of dedicated Paleontology servers/chats understands just how flawed and unsupported the Sail theory actually is, and they're too close-minded to even try to understand.
Right after I hit enter, I just remembered something to counter this line. We had a toy of Proceratosaurus way before the JWE Proceratosaurus was released. JWE's Procerato still aimed for a more realistic approach by giving it a full crest, and accurate skull shape. The toys are not solid canon for what a creature will look like in JWE.
as if giant f***ing spikes wouldn't stand out enough? "looking cool" isn't a good argument anyways
But that’s why people want Amarga right? Cool factor?
It has spikes!!!!!! Big! Spikes! Coming out of it's neck!!!!!! How is a sail cooler? It can't fight back with a sail, and people also are demanding a Sauropod that can fight back!! I don't understand at all why this myth is so common and hard for people to accept for fricks sake!
I'm running at my wits end with this omgHaving spikes definitely would make it stand out enough, but the sail would give it extra flair. I'm not doubting what you're saying about the Amargasaurus not having a sail, but dinosaur accuracy is definitely not JWE's strong suit. In fact, I feel as if dinosaur accuracy is not a strong suit of the JW and JP franchise as a whole, but that's okay. Because of this, I wouldn't mind if Frontier took some creative liberty and gave the Amargasaurus a sail.