...and probably made the assumption that the depiction is fairly realistic. Truth is, we've learned enough about the skeletal structure of dinosaurs and other prehistoric species that we can render a picture that's accurate in size and shape. Even aspects of how they might have moved is revealed from an analysis of structure. The one area, though, where images like these remain highly speculative is in coloration. Our best guess of the color of a T. rex has been largely that - a guess. ScientificAmerican.com tells us about a new study that will appear in the January 28 issue of Nature that may fill in some of the missing hues. Examining 125 million year old fossils of dinosaur feathers under a scanning electron microscope,researchers have been able to identify organelles responsible for pigment production. Applying what we know about pigments in living birds and reptiles, they are able to make an educated guess about what the fossilized creatures might have looked like.
Among the animals examined was Sinosauropteryx, a turkey-sized, feathered predatory dinosaur. The analysis revealed that the little guy had a tailed marked by "russett, gingery" bands, according to the University of Bristol's Michael Benton.
The dinosaur colorists owe a debt of gratitude to Jakob Vinther, a Ph.D. student in paleontology at Yale. Vinther noticed that fossilized melanosomes in the ancient squid that he was studying looked identical to those in living squid. He speculated that this might be true of melanosomes in other structures, and the work took off from there. Of course, there's still a lot of work to be done, and still a lot of conjecture. Still, we may be headed toward more realistic images of the animals that we've all been fascinated with since elementary school.
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