melanosomes

National Geographic should have a 3-D animation up soon The pursuit of accurate dinosaur colours just turned into a race, and a heated one at that. Just last week, I wrote about a group of scientists who claimed to have accurately identified the colours of some feathered dinosaurs by microscopically analysing three fossils. According to that study, Sinosauropteryx had a tail covered in ginger stripes. Now, another group have revealed the palette of an entire dinosaur, Anchiornis. This tiny predator had a dark grey body and the limbs bore long, white feathers tipped with black spangles. Its…
tags: evolutionary biology, fossils, feathers, plumage color, color, dinosaurs, theropods, Sinosauropteryx, Sinornithosaurus, birds, Confuciusornis, melanosomes, phaeomelanosomes, eumelanosomes, keratinocytes, SEM, scanning electron microscopy, 10.1038/nature08740, researchblogging.org, peer-reviewed research, peer-reviewed paper Reconstruction of two Sinosauropteryx, sporting their orange and white striped tails. Artwork by Chuang Zhao and Lida Xing [larger view] DOI: 10.1038/nature08740 While looking at museum dioramas that feature dinosaurs, I often overhear people asking "How do they…
tags: researchblogging.org, melanosomes, plumage color, feather color, fossil preservation, birds, dinosaur, Jakob Vinther Male Red-bellied woodpecker, Melanerpes carolinus. Image: Ken Thomas (Wikipedia) [larger view]. When looking at paintings and reconstructions of fossil birds and dinosaurs, people often ask "how do you know what color they were?" Well, we didn't. However, a new paper was just published in Biology Letters that explores the possibility of deciphering the actual color of fossilized plumage and makes a startling discovery: scientists can identify at least some of the…