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Description
The smallish unenlagiine dromaeosaur Buitreraptor gonzalezorum goes for a small, basal snake (actually, you can see its tiny hindlimbs right below the theropod's mid-maxilla - no, it's not flyspeck). I've tried this scene over and over again, taking inspiration mostly from modern wading birds. I tried a VERY Mycteria spp. stork-like feather pattern, but in the end went with this one and found out that it actually works better with it.

I know, I know, Anchiornis and microraptorines make a strong case for "four-winged-ness" as the default deinonychosaurian condition, but if unenlagiines like this were really "heron raptors", they probably had good reason to lose their rear wings.

It was drawn before the first Anchiornis specimens were found, so there has been no evidence for a feathered thumb at the time. Given that scaly vs. feathered thumbs are both present in non-avialan and avialan maniraptorans, I don't think that's too much of a problem until we see a clear distributional pattern here.

I used

Description
The smallish unenlagiine dromaeosaur Buitreraptor gonzalezorum goes for a small, basal snake (actually, you can see its tiny hindlimbs right below the theropod's mid-maxilla - no, it's not flyspeck). I've tried this scene over and over again, taking inspiration mostly from modern wading birds. I tried a VERY Mycteria spp. stork-like feather pattern, but in the end went with this one and found out that it actually works better with it.

I know, I know, Anchiornis and microraptorines make a strong case for "four-winged-ness" as the default deinonychosaurian condition, but if unenlagiines like this were really "heron raptors", they probably had good reason to lose their rear wings.

It was drawn before the first Anchiornis specimens were found, so there has been no evidence for a feathered thumb at the time. Given that scaly vs. feathered thumbs are both present in non-avialan and avialan maniraptorans, I don't think that's too much of a problem until we see a clear distributional pattern here.

I used