Community | January 27, 2010 | 7 comments

Pictures: Dinosaur True Colors Revealed by Feather Find

source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/01/photogalleries/100127-new-dinosaur-colors-fe...

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Sinosauropteryx, a turkey-size carnivorous dinosaur, is the first dinosaur—excluding birds, which many paleontologists consider to be dinosaurs—to have its color scientifically established.

In 1996, Sinosauropteryx was also the first dinosaur reported to have feathers. It was found in the Yixian formation, 130- to 123-million-year-old sediments in Liaoning Province in northeast China, which have since produced thousands of apparently feathery fossils.

In a report released online today by the journal Nature, an international team of paleontologists and experts in scanning electron micrography infer that this dinosaur had reddish orange feathers running along its back and a striped tail. (Read the full story: "True Dinosaur Colors Revealed for the First Time.")

Why would a dinosaur need a striped tail? Many birds, the living descendants of non-avian dinosaurs, use brightly colored tails for courtship displays.

(Related pictures: "What's Wrong With This Picture? An Audio Critique [of Dinosaur Art].")

—Chris Sloan, National Geographic magazine paleontology editor

January 27, 2010
The feathers of Sinosauropteryx have been the subject of controversy ever since they were first described.

To the naked eye, the fossilized feathers are fine hairlike filaments that give the impression of being soft and downlike. Some researchers proposed that these structures were not feathers at all, however, but the remains of collagen from inside the tail.
The feather of an extinct Confuciusornis bird may have had colors similar to those in this modern feather from a zebra finch, according to the new study.

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7 comments // Pictures: Dinosaur True Colors Revealed by Feather Find

  • artemis6
  • remanns
  • remanns
  • remanns
  • DeliaTheArtist
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      DeliaTheArtist  
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    • That is awesome. The idea of dinosaurs being brightly colored adds even more excitement to the field! The image of dinosaurs have changed so much since I was young; I love to go to the museum of natural history and see how we've interpreted our findings over time. Feathered, colorful, bird like dinos is a far cry from the more traditional greyish, hulking reptiles many people remember from elementary school!

    • 2 years ago
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    • DeliaTheArtist:

      I think we can model dinos by comparing birds to their habitat - and dinys to their's.
      Big to small - and predator to pray. All might show a good model for color variation to environment.

      They have done studies where spots in foxes' fur become a sign of domestication. As in spots in dogs. Spots leaving when generations are left to the wild.

      This is tied to predator/pray.

    • 2 years ago
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    • I just saw another of this article in the science news and thought about all those dinosaurs in Jurassic park movies - that most may have been feathered or hairy-feathered - and in colors - like birds.
      Some birds see in an exaggerated color spectrum, compared with us. Some of their feathers are seen by them in a way that is much different than we see them.

      They can appear somewhat as though they were dressed in wild clothes, iridescents. We see the variation in peacock feathers - but to birds, it can be like some magical fairly land.
      Therefore, I think it is likely that their whole experience of life and of mating in particular is a world we have not guessed at.

      Kind of like the Avatar movie's world.

      So the world of dinosaurs may have been a far more dynamic life experience than we might normally have given thought.

    • 2 years ago
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