>>5386824Now that is a nice lizard
>>5387434Funny you should mention that...
You see, the only scales known to exist on dinosaurs are "tuberculate" scales, identical to the ones found on the feet of modern birds.
However, modern protein assays and developmental studies demonstrate that dinosaur tuberculae (the proper name) aren't exactly "scales."
They're filamentous feathers that have been halted at an early stage in their development.
Hell, the plate-like scales on the feet of modern dinosaurs (known as tarsal scutes) are actually WING-like feathers, or remiges.
With all this information, one thing becomes abundantly clear: dinosaurs had feathers BEFORE they had the kinds of scales known from their skin impressions.
Because of this, a simple dichotomy of scales vs. feathers is about as far from reality as you can get. With nothing more than a single developmental gene mutation, feathers could become "scales," scale-like scutes could become feathers, and all kinds of wacky novel bullshit could emerge at the drop of a hat.
tl;dr, feathers are a basal trait for dinosaurs, all dinosaurs had feathers to an extent, but different lineages expressed the feather-genes in different ways.
