Now that we know some dinosaurs had down or feathers instead of the scales we used to imagine, there are intriguing new questions to be answered. Did forest-dwelling species use patterned feathers for camouflage? Did other dinosaurs use flashy colors for communication or courtship, like modern birds do? Using new imaging techniques, scientists are beginning to color in their dinosaur outlines.
In previous studies, researchers have scoured fossils of dinosaurs and early birds for melanosomes, structures in cells that hold the pigment melanin. (Despite the range of colors in our eyes, fur, and skin, most animals only produce one pigment: the brownish melanin. Blues and greens can be created by light-scattering tricks.) The shape of a melanosome can tell researchers what type of color it was responsible for, from black to yellow to red. But melanosomes, like other non-bony structures, break down over time and are hard to find in ...
