What of the quill knobs?
The images in the article do not do justice to the significance the researchers put on their find (figure 1). This may just be a problem with the images. However, in contrast to clear quill knobs on the turkey vulture ulna shown for comparison, the ‘quill knobs’ on the Velociraptor bone are rather inconspicuous even in the magnified image.2 One must wonder if these quill knobs are really quill knobs at all. The specimen these claims are based on, IGM (Geological Institute of Mongolia) 100/981, appears to be nothing more than a single ulna bone. Turner et al. say that it ‘possesses several characteristics’ normally found in Velociraptor mongoliensis and that it was found in rocks that have produced other Velociraptor specimens. However, their whole case rests on this one bone. Taxonomic misidentification is always a possibility when all that was found was one bone. Another important point is that quill knobs are usually evidence of secondary feathers used for flight. However, nobody bel
