Jurassic Feathers
Scientists have found out what color dinosaurs were
Andrey Zhukov, Hi-News
Have you ever wondered what color dinosaurs had and how in general scientists can know what these prehistoric creatures looked like? For a long time, dinosaurs were represented as dull gray or with brown scales. However, recently the ideas about their appearance in the scientific world have begun to change. Some scientists claim that they had bright coloring, and some even sported feathers like peacocks. One such scientist is Jacob Winter, professor of macroevolution at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. He was one of the first to discover pigments in dinosaur feather fossils that were initially confused with bacteria. According to them, he found out what color dinosaurs actually had.
Pigments found in dinosaur feathers
Reports of fossilized dinosaur feathers have been appearing since 1996. Scientists almost immediately discovered microscopic round structures in them. As we said above, initially scientists took them for fossilized bacteria. However, Dr. Jacob Winter immediately questioned this assumption. Previously, he studied pigments in fossil animals similar to squid and octopus, which are perfectly preserved. These pigments look exactly the same as those of modern squid. They resemble perfect round balls. Their correct name is melanosomes. These pigments color the hair, feathers and skin of living creatures. The fossilized round structures in the feathers of dinosaurs turned out to be the same melanosomes.
How to find out the color of fossil animals from fossils
Why were the pigments initially confused with bacteria? Scientists believed that melanosomes could not survive in the process of fossilization. By the way, petrification is a very interesting and extremely rare process. But, as it turned out later, melanosomes are not only able to persist, but can also tell what color the surviving animals were.
Another interesting question immediately arises — how can the color of an animal be restored from fossils? Pigments come not only in the form of round balls, but also in many other forms. Moreover, each form has its own color. Thus, knowing which color corresponds to a particular form of pigment, it is possible to restore the color of the animal.
"People with black hair or birds with black feathers have sausage-shaped pigments. If you have red hair and red breasts, they have the shape of small meatballs. Basically, you're just looking for sausages and meatballs, and then you can color in extinct animals," says Dr. Jacob Winter.
Large melanosomes indicate that the pigment is gray or blue. Long and thin melanosomes, as well as flat or hollow ones, indicate that the color was bright, "iridescent". According to scientists, the flat or hollow shape of melanosomes helps the pigments to connect with each other and form a metallic luster with an iridescent color.
The coloring of the dinosaurs was bright
The first dinosaur that Jacob Winter studied was Anchiornis, a small bird—like animal. The study showed that he had a gray body, white feathers with black spots on his wings. An interesting feature of this animal is a red crown on its head, like woodpeckers.
The dinosaur sinosauropteryx had a striped tail and a dark "mask", like raccoons.
The dinosaur Psittacosaurus had a so-called anti-shadow coloring, that is, a kind of camouflage. Those parts of the body that were in the shade had lighter tones than those that were most often in the sun. A similar coloring has a white-tailed deer, which has a white belly and a brown back.
As the scientists themselves note, some dinosaurs with an intimidating reputation were incredibly spectacular. So, veloceraptors were not naked creatures, as they are shown, but had feathers. They had a beautiful metallic luster, like a hummingbird or peacock. Yes, it looks like it's time to reshoot "Jurassic Park".
How color helps to learn more about the life of dinosaurs
Coloring of animals allows scientists to learn a lot not only about their appearance, but also their habitat. For example, if the color is contrasting with sharp transitions from dark to light, as in Sinosauropteryx, most likely the animal lived outdoors. If the animal lived in forests, the transitions of tones are smoother and scattered.
Camouflage also distinguishes predators from prey. Scientists previously believed that the huge armored dinosaur Borealopelta markmitchelli had no predator enemies, but its coloring, which helps to disguise, suggests the opposite.
Animals that really do not have enemies, for example, elephants and rhinos, do not have any patterns at all, since no one attacks them. Obviously, there were such terrible animals living next to the armored dinosaur that even the armor did not save the dinosaur.
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