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This model of Sinosauropteryx was created for National Geographic magazine in 1996, when this dinosaur was announced as the first to have feathers. The artist, Brian Cooley, worked closely with paleontologist Philip Currie to create this reconstruction. Some banding was visible on the fossil specimen's tail, so the team captured that in this artwork. Otherwise, the colors and pattern were based on a guess at what a small forest-dwelling, carnivorous, birdlike animal might have looked like. Based on today's revelation of the true colors of Sinosauropteryx, Cooley and Currie were not far off. © Lou Mazzatenta/Brian Cooley
When I was growing up as a typical dinosaur-loving kid, I was told that we’d never know the real color of dinosaurs. As an adult and as the art director of National Geographic magazine for many years, I encountered the same answer every time I worked with scientists and artists to depict a scene of prehistoric life. We made do by making informed guesses based on what we saw in living animals.
I feel particularly privileged to have been behind the scenes on the story that broke today showing the first scientifically established color on nonavian dinosaurs. I visited China two times last year to meet Chinese scientists working on this study and visited with Mike Benton of the University of Bristol at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology annual meeting there last winter. These scientists were on the brink of doing something once thought impossible. As we talked, the excitement among them was palpable.
For paleontologists, knowing the color and patterns of fossil feathers is likely to prove invaluable in gaining insight into dinosaur behavior. Was feather color used by dinosaurs as it is in living birds, that is, for courtship displays, camouflage, defensive posturing, and to differentiate the sexes? Probably so, but there was simply no way to know until now.
From today on, scientists will be looking for preserved melanosomes in any well-preserved fossils. And paleoartists will have a whole new line of science-based information to work with. Gone are the days when paleoartists had complete “artistic license" when it came to dinosaur color. Scientists will no longer be able to say Who knows? quite so often.
Today, we are hearing about melanosomes found on the tails, backs, and other parts of dinosaurs. Fucheng Zhang, Benton, and their colleagues will soon try to color whole feathered dinosaurs and fossil birds. Other teams are sure to be looking not only at fossil feathers but also at the skin, hair, eyes, and many other structures of animals that preserve melanin, the pigment in melanosomes.
This is just the very first glimpse of the color of the prehistoric world, like sun rays just peeking over the horizon at dawn. Hold on to your seats. There will be much, much more to come!
—Christopher P. Sloan
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Jan 27, 2010 4PM #
It is interesting that this article presents only one side of the picture. Sinosauropteryx, is one of the stars of the evolutionary dino-to-bird story because, as reported in Science in 1966, bristly fibres found in the skin on the back of the neck and on the tail, were interpreted as being proto-feathers, the precursor to the real thing.
However, just a year later, Larry Martin suggested that the fibres found on the back of the neck and tail of Sinosauropteryx were likely “frayed collagenous fibers under the skin.” (1)
Next we have a study by renowned ornithologist Alan Feduccia and his colleagues that shows that these and other filamentous structures were not feathers or “proofreaders” but instead were likely the remains of collagenous fibre “meshworks” that reinforce the skin. (2)
And then comes a team of researchers led by Prof. Theagarten Lingham-Soliar from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa which has added to the mounting body of evidence that shows that Sinosauropteryx is not a dino-to-bird intermediate fossil. They reported in Proceedings of the Royal Society B that the filamentous structures in the skin of a recently discovered Sinosauropteryx—often touted as “proofreaders“—are nothing more than structural collagen. (3,4)
But of course, when one wants to believe something, the facts can be interpreted any way one wants, to support their idea.
1. Gibbons, A., Plucking the feathered dinosaur, Science 278:1229.
2. Feduccia, A., Lingham-Soliar, T., and Hinchliffe, J.R., Do feathered dinosaurs exist? Testing the hypothesis on neontological and paleontological evidence, Journal of Morphology 266(2):125–166, 10 October 2005 (DOI: 10.1002/jmor.10382.
3. Lingham-Soliar, T., Alan Feduccia, A. and Wang, X., A new Chinese specimen indicates that ‘protofeathers’ in the Early Cretaceous theropod dinosaur Sinosauropteryx are degraded collagen fibres, Proceedings of the Royal Society B doi:10.1098/rspb.2007.0352, Published online 23 May 2007
4. Obviously aware that there will be many people with a strong interest in protecting the evolutionary dino-to-bird paradigm, Lingham-Soliar et al., (ref. 5, p. 2.) have countered a likely objection by affirming that the method they used to identify the filamentous structures as collagen is ‘more than adequate’ for the job of identifying dermal collagen in a wide range of living and fossil specimens.
Jan 27, 2010 4PM #
Dear Chris:
I appreciate the article you posted: but wish to bring to your attention that the Padua, also known as Polish or Poland, Chicken most clearly resembles Anchiornis huxleyi. The coloring of their crest is exactly the same as on this breed's gold lace Rooster, the body pattern and color the same as on the silver lace.
I would be happy to forward you photos's of those two chickens I have mentioned - to illustrate my point.
You can observe them live via a camera streaming live video and audio from my studio where they live as well as view pictures of them on my website. You might also read about my flock and see photos by Nicole Bengiveno in a recent NYTimes article by Penelope Green at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/garden/16chickens.html?_r=1
and a blog by Nicole Bengiveno at: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/assignment-12/?hp
I look forward to your response to this information.
Thank you.
Hope Sandrow
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