In the previous two articles of this series, we have examined the first two iterations of first dataset used in McLain et al’s attempt to feather dinosaurs. As we have seen so far, the dataset seems to be laden with issues, likely due to including too many taxa from disparate kinds and being fragmentary due to the nature of fossils. I’m starting to come to the conclusion that this dataset (and the paper) is absolutely worthless, but more on that in a later article. For now, lets get into what McLain et al did in their third diagram.