On feathers fleas and big stem birds
There are more and more articles and new research on the subject of feathers in dinosaurs. I begin to see now that the more we learn about dinosaurs, and the more new findings emerge, the more we realize how wrong we were about some of our previous understandings.
I'm not the one to say whether Carnotaurus had feathers or not, that's for sure. But I can think about it and try to imagine what would it be if it had fur/feather filament from the artistic perspective. Not trying to be sensationalist about it either, this is just a matter of exploring existing ideas and assumptions. Take Elephant for example. It is more or less naked with some patches of fur and fuzz scattered trough its body. Now go just a little bit back in time and you have a close relative, Woolly Mammoth, with tons of fur. Who is to say that dinosaurs were not the same? Maybe some of them developed fuz and fur as they spread around the globe, as to adjust to the new environments. Maybe they shed fur seasonally. As well, there is a great write up on the fact that fur and scales can coexist by Mr. Tom Hopp: Even more dinosaur skin
This is one nice example of the armadillo, quite scaly and armored animal, with fur and scales at the same time: Chaetophractus vellerosus
Now imagine if Carnotaurus did feature something like this armadillo, but if it was not fur, if it was feathery filament such as this: Feathery filament
We would end up with a pretty fuzzy Carnotaurus in that case, just like the one I made.
In regard to preserved patches of skin, they are in the end just that, patches. And there is the fact that feather is the hardest one to be preserved. With paleontologists discovering feathers preserved only in specific type of rock. To quote that article: "outside of the Chinese and German beds, and rare amber inclusions, there are very few regions where feather are preserved in the fossil record."
Now this is obviously inaccurate but does look wicked cool
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