Fossil Moth Reveals Colorful Hue. Prehistoric Colors Preserved in Near-Perfect Beetle Fossils. Leaf Beetle, MesselFrom the fossil pits in Messel, Germany. Approximately 47 million years old. Leaf Beetle, Messel (Microscope View)Scanning electron microscope view of the beetle's shell. The arrow points to a pore. Scale bar corresponds to 2 micrometers in length. Leaf Beetle, Messel #2From the fossil pits in Messel, Germany. Leaf Beetle, Clarkia #2Leaf beetle from the Clarkia fossil beds in Idaho. Leaf Beetle, MesselFrom the fossil pits in Messel, Germany. Despite being tens of millions of years old, some beetle fossils appear almost as they did in life. Though relatively little-known, these fossils represent the purest of biological colors retrieved from deep time, far richer than much-celebrated pigment traces of dinosaur plumage and more varied than the hues of a few ancient plants. If especially fine-grained sediments replace a dead beetle’s decomposing body, the resulting fossil should replicate its hues, too.
“You need to mentally redshift the color. See Also: Fossil Feathers Preserve Evidence of Color, Say Yale Scientists. Bird fossil from the Oligocene epoch, approximately 30 million years old. [Photo credit: Matt Shawkey] The traces of organic material found in fossil feathers are remnants of pigments that once gave birds their color, according to Yale scientists whose paper in Biology Letters opens up the potential to depict the original coloration of fossilized birds and their ancestors, the dinosaurs. Closer study of a number of fossilized bird feathers by Yale PhD student Jakob Vinther revealed that organic imprints in the fossils — previously thought to be carbon traces from bacteria — are fossilized melanosomes, the organelles that contain melanin pigment.
“Birds frequently have spectacularly colored plumage which are often used in camouflage and courtship display,” said Vinther. “Feather melanin is responsible for rusty-red to jet-black colors and a regular ordering of melanin even produces glossy iridescence. Working with Yale paleontologist Derek E. G. Citation: Biol.Lett. Dinosaur True Colors Revealed for First Time by Feather Study. Pigments have been found in fossil dinosaurs for the first time, a new study says.
The discovery may prove once and for all that dinosaurs' hairlike filaments—sometimes called dino fuzz—are related to bird feathers, paleontologists announced today. (Pictures: Dinosaur True Colors Revealed by Feather Find.) The finding may also open up a new world of prehistoric color, illuminating the role of color in dinosaur behavior and allowing the first accurately colored dinosaur re-creations, according to the study team, led by Fucheng Zhang of China's Institute for Vertebrate Paleontology.
The team identified fossilized melanosomes—pigment-bearing organelles—in the feathers and filament-like "protofeathers" of fossil birds and dinosaurs from northeastern China. Found in the feathers of living birds, the nano-size packets of pigment—a hundred melanosomes can fit across a human hair—were first reported in fossil bird feathers in 2008. End of Dinosaur-Bird Debate? A New World of Dinosaur Color. First Proof: Ancient Birds Had Iridescent Feathers. August 26, 2009 Just like modern-day starlings, some ancient birds had glossy black feathers with a metallic, glimmering sheen, scientists report in a new study.
The discovery is based on 40-million-year-old fossils of an unidentified bird species that were stored at the Senckenburg Museum in Frankfurt, Germany for up to 30 years. The fossils represent the first evidence of ancient iridescence in feathers. Iridescence is caused by an interaction of light with the material that the light hits. The research moves scientists a step closer to determining the true colors of extinct creatures, said study co-author Richard Prum, an ornithologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Most of what scientists know about the hues of extinct species are best guesses, based on factors such as the color of related living species, Prum said. Pigment Capsules (Related: "Dino-Era Feathers Found Encased in Amber. ")
What Color Is Your Dinosaur? The Dragons of Liaoning. Paleontologists are always looking for vast new caches of clues about ancient life but rarely expect to find them. Fossil discoveries tend to come piece meal, one fragment at a time, so we were unprepared for the onslaught of fossils from Liaoning Provincein northeastern China. The story began in the early 1990s, when Chinese researchers began unearthing intriguing land animals: first a primitive toothed bird, then a more advanced one. Then rumors began to circulate about strange dinosaurs covered with birdlike feathers. Now it seems as if there are more kinds of these creatures than we can count.
During the Early Cretaceous, between 110 million and 140 million years ago, Liaoning was a remarkable place—covered by forests, riddled with lakes, and populated with a rich variety of animal and plant life. Feathers Trapped in Amber Reveal a More Colorful Dinosaur Age. Evolution of Feathers. First Dinosaur Feathers for Show, Not Flight? October 22, 2008 One of the oldest known dinosaur relatives of birds had "bizarre" anatomy, including long, ribbon-like tail feathers that suggest plumage may have first evolved for show rather than for flight, scientists say.
Farmers unearthed a fossil of the new dino species, dubbed Epidexipteryx hui, from the hills of Inner Mongolia in late 2007. The remains date back to 152 million to 168 million years ago, making the newfound creature slightly older than Archaeopteryx, the most primitive known bird. (Related: "Earliest Bird Had Feet Like Dinosaur, Fossil Shows" [December 1, 2005].) Like other avialans—birds and their closest dinosaur relatives—Epidexipteryx is a theropod, a group of two-legged animals that includes Tyrannosaurus rex. Researchers think the pigeon-size Epidexipteryx might have used its plumes as flashy ornaments, since it was mostly covered in short feathers that lack the structure necessary for flight. "Bizarre" Anatomy. Amber Reveals Origins of Feathers. Dinosaur feather evolution trapped in Canadian amber.