Differently shaped melanosomes contain differently coloured pigments
Excerpts from this BBC article:
A team of scientists from China and the UK has now revealed that the bristles of this 125 million-year-old dinosaur were in fact ginger-coloured feathers.
The researchers say that the diminutive carnivore had a “Mohican” of feathers running along its head and back. It also had a striped tail.
The team revealed details of the dinosaur’s coloured feathers in an article published on Nature’s website.
The team began by studying the fossilised remains of a bird, Confuciusornis, which also lived during the early cretaceous period.
Confuciusornis’ feathers were preserved in extraordinarily complete fossils that were recently discovered in northern China.
Using a powerful electron microscope to look inside the feathers, researchers were able to see microscopic structures called melanosomes, which, in life, contain the pigment melanin.
Sinosauropteryx had a "Mohican" of ginger feathers and a stripy tail
This gives more weight to a very well-supported theory that modern birds evolved from theropods, the group of small carnivorous dinosaurs to which Sinosauropteryx belonged.
“This discovery suggests that with more work we may be able to accurately reconstruct colour patterns in some dinosaur species, and begin to understand how those colour patterns may have functioned for camouflage or display.”
