Iridescent, feathered dinosaur offers fresh evidence that ...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 143159.htm
Mar 8, 2012 - Researchers have revealed that the small, feathered dinosaur Microraptor had a glossy iridescent sheen like a modern crow and that its tail

Dinosaur True Colors Revealed for First Time

Dinosaur True Colors Revealed for First Time
"Dino fuzz" pigment discovery in feathers may strengthen dinosaur-bird link.
By Chris Sloan, National Geographic magazine paleontology editor, for National Geographic News
An illustration depicting dinosaur Sinosauropteryx in true color, with a striped tail and orange back feathers
Sinosauropteryx is the first fossil dinosaur to have its color scientifically established.
ILLUSTRATION COURTESY JAMES ROBINS
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.

The two most common types of melanin found in modern birds are eumelanin, associated with black and grey feathers, and phaeomelanin, found in reddish brown to yellow feathers.

Melanosomes of both types were found during the new study, providing "the first empirical evidence for reconstructing the colors and color patterning" in dinosaurs and Chinese fossil birds, Zhang and his colleagues write.

For example, the 125-million-year-old early bird Confuciusornis was found to have color variation between blacks and browns in a single feather. And dark areas in Sinosauropteryx's tail were "absolutely packed with phaeomelanosomes," said Benton—a finding that led the team to propose that the dinosaur's tail was striped with "chestnut to rufous [reddish brown] tones."

The University of Maryland's Holtz said, "It seems reasonable to infer that the same size and shape melanosomes in dinosaurs would have resulted in the same colors as in modern birds."

Feathered Dinosaur Colors Bloomed 150 Million Years Ago
Pigments colored early birds and mammals during the age of dinosaurs.
By Dan Vergano, National Geographic
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 14, 2014

"The story wasn't as much about color, we think, as it was about physiology," Clarke says.

Melanin, the pigment protein inside melanosomes, is also involved in metabolism—how animals burn energy in their cells, Clarke says. These pigments broadened at a time when the first warm-blooded mammals and the flightless, feathered dinosaurs ancestral to modern birds were evolving.

"So this study offers a tantalising prospect—suggesting evidence for links between evolution of coloured feathers and metabolism," McNamara said, by email.

Scientists have uncovered the first traces of pigment in reptile fossils - a dark hue found in three extinct deep-sea beasts distantly related to today's leatherback turtle.

"This is the first time that... remains of original pigments have been detected in any (extinct) reptile, including dinosaurs," Johan Lindgren of Sweden's Lund University said.

Structural coloration in a fossil feather

Jakob Vinther , Derek E. G. Briggs , Julia Clarke , Gerald Mayr , Richard O. Prum
DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0524 Published 12 January 2010
ArticleFigures & DataInfo & MetricseLetters PDF
Abstract

Investigation of feathers from the famous Middle Eocene Messel Oil Shale near Darmstadt, Germany shows that they are preserved as arrays of fossilized melanosomes, the surrounding beta-keratin having degraded. The majority of feathers are preserved as aligned rod-shaped eumelanosomes. In some, however, the barbules of the open pennaceous, distal portion of the feather vane are preserved as a continuous external layer of closely packed melanosomes enclosing loosely aligned melanosomes. This arrangement is similar to the single thin-film nanostructure that generates an iridescent, structurally coloured sheen on the surface of black feathers in many lineages of living birds. This is, to our knowledge[HILITE], the first evidence of preservation of a colour-producing nanostructure in a fossil feather[/HILITE] and confirms the potential for determining colour differences in ancient birds and other dinosaurs.

Newly Discovered Fossils Hint That All Dinosaurs May Have Had Feathers ...

Jul 24, 2014 - Over 30 species of non-avian dinosaurs have been confirmed to have feathers, either from direct fossilized evidence of feathers, or other indicators, such as quill knobs. Up until now, all of those dinosaurs were confirmed to be carnivorous theropods, like Velociraptor and the ancestors of birds.