Okay, I was trying to come up with a snappy-sounding subject name, and this was the best I could do. I really wanted to say that scientists have found evidence that dinosaurs were colorful, but I'm talking about colors all the time anyway, so I wanted to use another word here.
Anyway, back to the dinos! I'm sure you know that some dinosaurs had feathers, and scientists have found some very well-preserved fossils of some of those feathery now-extinct saurians, which were, in fact, the ancestors of birds! Scientists now believe that the feathery dinosaurs got their colors in the same way as birds do. This is what New York Times said about the color of birds:
feathers contain pigment-loaded sacs called melanosomes
and
Matthew Shawkey ... has made detailed studies of melanosome patterns in living birds. Dr. Shawkey can accurately predict the color of feathers from melanosomes alone.
So by studying the pigment-loaded sacs of feathers of birds, a scientist has been able to accurately predict the color of birds. Now that well-preserved fossils of feathery dinosaurs have been found, the sacs of their feathers have been studied as well, and their colors have been revealed. One species, Anchiornis huxleyi, probably looked like
this. Honestly, people, isn't it handsome? It would be a sensation on the catwalk, wouldn't it? Could this dino offer a glimpse of next year's haute couture?
Ann
Oh, and... just one more comment from New York Times:
"For a dinosaur scientist, this is like the birth of color TV."
LUIS M. CHIAPPE, a paleontologist, on the latest research on the color of dinosaurs.
