The leatherback turtle (top) and mosasaur (bottom) are countershaded (have a dark back and light belly), whereas the ichthyosaur (center) is uniformly dark-colored. Credit: Stefan Sølberg
Leatherbacks, and other ancient sea reptiles, wore black. That's the conclusion of a new study on three fossilized sea reptiles, in which scientists reconstructed the color of the creatures’ skin by detecting traces of the pigment melanin. Beyond a fashion statement, the melanin (and accompanying brown/black hue) may have been an adaptation for living in cold water and for camouflaging the animals, according to the researchers.
Although artistic renderings of long-gone reptiles are often impressive, the colors are usually left to the imagination—skin doesn’t really keep well over millions of years. For evolutionary biologists, this color-blindness had long been a nuisance, since color is a key trait on which natural selection acts. From cryptic brown
, adaptive color provides clues for ...
