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We Can Finally Definitively Determine What Color the Dinosaurs Were

The great paleontological debate is over.
Concept drawing of Anchiornis. Image: Matt Martyniuk

In recent years, paleontologists have been able to reconstruct the color of dinosaur feathers by analyzing tiny pigment structures preserved in fossils. Needless to say, this is a huge leap for the field, allowing scientists to definitely identify the coloration patterns of long extinct animals. (In case you were wondering, Archaeopteryx was matte black, while Microraptor had more of an iridescent sheen to its plumage.)

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Artist concept of Archaeopteryx coloration. Image: Nobu Tamura

Last year, however, a team led by paleontologist Alison Moyer published a paper in Nature arguing that these structures could easily be microbes fossilized alongside decomposing animals, rather than a cellular component of the animal itself.

The study, among others, sparked a raging debate among scientists over the true nature of the structures, and threw the results of previous studies assessing dinosaur color into question.

Today, however, a team has definitely proven that these structures are, indeed, dinosaur pigmentation structures. In a new study published this morning in Scientific Reports, the team produced molecular evidence that the structures are uncontaminated by microbes. Upshot: Yes, we can absolutely decode the colors of extinct animals from their earthly remains.

"This was the final nail in the coffin, the last piece of evidence needed," paleontologist Ryan Carney, a co-author of the paper, told me over the phone. "It's been quite fulfilling to get this out there."

Carney is at the forefront of research into dinosaur color, and has helped pioneer a technique called ToF-SIMS to identify "melanosomes," which are structures cells use to produce and distribute the pigment melanin. He led the team that identified Archaeopteryx feather color, and also co-authored a paper about the skin color of extinct marine reptiles.

In order to prove that the structures they had been observing were melanosomes, Carney and his colleagues sampled fossils from a small bird-like dinosaur called Anchiornis huxleyi, which lived 150 million years ago in what is now China.

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The specimen the team studied. Image: Thierry Hubin/RBINS

"The reason we picked Anchiornis is that it's the first dinosaur to have its full body plumage reconstructed, and it also showed evidence of having both eumelanosomes and pheomelanosomes—both types of the main melanin pigment," Carney told me.

"We tested two different classes—and three different melanin types—from bacteria," he continued. "The ToF-SIMS technique allows us to fingerprint the molecules and get a unique signature for them."

Melanosomes from the fossil. Image: J. Lindgren, et. al.

"We found there's a clear distinction between the microbial melanin and what we found in the fossils," he said. "We can say conclusively that it is an animal-type melanin. We found no other bacterial molecules."

In other words, these structures really are indicators of animal color, and learning how to effectively identify them could flesh out our conception of extinct animals in unimaginable ways.

"We are now finding melanosomes in a variety of tissues from eyes, to feathers, to skin, in all sorts of animals across a great swath of time and geography," Carney said. "Utilizing these new technologies to find these biomolecules trapped in these fossils for millions of years is the key in reconstructing not just their pigmentation, but also how they lived."

For example, the fact that Microraptor was found to be iridescent suggests it was active during the day, when light-sensitive feathers would be most effective. In this way, studying pigmentation can shed light on all kinds of information about an extinct animal's appearance, behavior, and its interactions with the wider ecosystem.

"Targeting other biomolecules and pigments and coupling that with new, exceptionally preserved specimens is really the way forward," Carney said.

So, what will be the next dinosaur to show its true colors? We can only hope it is the monumentally weird Therizinosaurus, which I can only assume has untold levels of bizarre features left to be discovered.