DINOSAUR WITH COLORFUL PLUMAGE DISCOVERED
Baku, February 6 (AZERTAC). Scientists have long speculated that dinosaurs were a dull brown or mottled gray, VOA reports. But researchers studying the fossils of an ancient dinosaur say they`ve found new evidence the creature sported vibrantly colored feathers. The discovery expands scientists` understanding not only of how some dinosaurs looked but also how they behaved.
US and Chinese Scientists reconstructed the plumage of a 150-million-year-old flightless dinosaur called Anchiornis huxleyi, using an electron microscope and thirty fossilized feathers that once covered the cat-sized creature.
Researchers focused their attention on chemical compounds in the feathers called melanosomes tiny, pigment-producing structures that formed in the feather during the creature`s development. They compared these structures to the melanosomes that determine the color of feathers on living birds, and were then able to figure out the colors of the ancient dinosaur`s feathers.
Richard Prum, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University in Connecticut, says the melanosomes of the Cretaceous-era dinosaur, whose fossil remains were found in Lianong Province in China, were very well preserved. Prum says reconstructing the plumage of Anchiornis was like painting a picture by numbers.
"There was this moment when I had the pleasure to go back over the data and find out well, patch twenty-two, where is that on the body? And patch seven where is that color? And fill in the blanks," said Richard Prum.
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