Study reveals dinosaur feather colors

BEIJING, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) -- Certain feathered dinosaurs might have been grey, brown, yellow and red in color, and as colorful as modern birds, according to a study published online in the journal Nature.

A team of paleontologists from UK, China and Ireland have identified tiny color-bearing organelles called melanosomes in the fossil feathers of ancient birds and small meat-eating dinosaurs.

The fossils are from the Jehol site in northeastern China and are more than 100 million years old.

The finding, published online Wednesday, provided evidence that some dinosaurs had feathers, providing further evidence of an evolutionary link to birds, Zhang Fucheng, a member of the discovery team, told Xinhua Thursday.

According to Zhang, melanosomes are pigment-packed organelles found within the structure of feathers and hair in modern birds and mammals, giving black, grey, and rufous tones such as orange and brown.

Using the electron microscopy technologies, the scientists found two types of melanosome buried within the structure of the fossil feathers: sausage-shaped organelles called eumelanosomes that are seen today in the black stripes of zebras, and spherical organelles called phaeomelanosomes, which make and store pigment that creates the rusty hues of red human hair.

Although the team could not actually see the colors, Zhang told Xinhua that they assumed dinosaur feathers might have been grey, brown, yellow, or red in color, and might produce different color patterns if the hues blended.

"Dinosaurs and early birds that lived more than 120 million years ago might have been as colorful as modern birds," Zhang said.

Before the study, people could only guess at colors of the dinosaurs.

Xu Xing, another researcher of the discovery team, said fossils of a Sinosauropteryx, a smallish meat-eating dinosaur, indicated that it had light and dark feathered stripes along the length of its tail.

Feathers from the darker regions of the tail were packed with phaeomelanosomes, indicating they were "reddish brown" in color, while the lighter stripes could have been white, Xu said.

Adult Sinosauropteryx were about 1 meter long, but the tail accounted for more than half of that length.

"It is possible that the bright colors on its stripey tail were an important instrument of courtship display, like birds," he said, adding that the team was still not sure of the color of the dinosaur's body.