How colourful were dinosaurs.

[macdoc]

Just finished the wonderful science book Feathers as he traces the path from dinosaurs to birds and then this fine fellow wandered down the beach yesterday.

Got me thinking what kind of rich colours the dinos may have sported.

We always seem to see them portrayed a dull gray green.....

The cassowary seems right out of dino land ...it dwells in an 80 million year old rain forest never glaciated.
The tecture of the legs and feet is right out of velociraptor ( and yeah they can be aggressive ).

The head and neck so so brilliant ...surely dinosaurs would have some similar display coloration.

I notice Archaeopteryx is coloured but drab in some depictions tho others it is bright.
Seems even without feathers there is no reason dinosaurs need to be drab.

Thoughts?

 

[MG1962]

We always seem to see them portrayed a dull gray green.....

Because before the connection of birds and dinosaurs was considered. The closest living relative was the reptile and the perception with them is the bigger they get the duller the colors.

I dont have the details at hand, but recent studies have managed to extract some sense of pigmentation from at least one dinosaur. And one of the colors they found was red.

Given how much color plays in courtship rituals with a vast variety of life on our planet I am certain at least some dinosaurs had pretty gaudy feathers to advertise to the opposite sex with

 

[JoeMorgue]

There's a wonderful book called All Yesterdays that tackled this very question.

 

[Dessi]

There's a wonderful book called All Yesterdays that tackled this very question.

+1 for All Yesterdays

Here are a few speculative images depicting dinosaurs, and a few hilarious ones depicting how modern animals were look if they were modeled using the some of the same assumptions we hold about dinosaurs.

The sequel, All Your Yesterdays, is available for free at Irregular Books.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

I suppose they ran the gamut of options just like birds do. When I was a kid I suspected they might be colorful despit the drab pictures in books of the era. Now my kids' plastic dinosaurs are painted with bright colors in believable patterns. Very cool.

 

[Donn]

If I'd known, as a kid, that birds were dinosaurs. Man. I'd be a scientist today. Bugger.

 

[casebro]

Birds from dinos was a evolutionary leap, colors might have happened along in there.

But modern reptiles also have lots of color, and are much nearer dinos. Besides chameleons, I have orange yellow green black brown blue gray silver white, all in my back yard.

And not only small ones needed camoflage, predators did too. Think tigers, leopards, cheetahs, wolfs and assorted colors of dogs. And lions are not black, they hunt dry grassland in the day time, so their tawny color is a camo too.

Dinos evolved for millions of years, you betcha they evolved camo BDUs.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Doesn't matter, everything was black and white back then.

 

[Roboramma]

Birds from dinos was a evolutionary leap, colors might have happened along in there.

But modern reptiles also have lots of color, and are much nearer dinos.

No they aren't. The closest living relatives of any dinosaur is birds, though they are closer to some dinosaurs than they are to others. Their most recent common ancestor with any particular dinosaur species lived much more recently than the most recent common ancestor of that species and any living reptile.

Cladistically speaking birds are dinosaurs.

Perhaps you are suggesting that modern reptiles fill ecological niches closer to those filled by dinosaurs than do birds, and thus in behaviour and morphology are, at least outwardly, more similar? Unlikely, given the diversity of dinosaurs and the fact that reptiles have been pushed into specialised niches by mammals, that argument might actually apply to mammals, but not reptiles.

Finally, I suppose you could argue that some early dinosaurs were closer to early reptiles than they are to modern birds, as the number of generations that separates them from a common ancestor is less, but since we know as little about the coloration of those early reptiles as we do about the dinosaurs themselves, that's not a particularly useful point, and further dinosaurs lived for so long that for later dinosaurs that's no longer true: the separation in time and in generations between them and those early reptiles is greater than that between them and modern birds.

 

[Rincewind]

Doesn't matter, everything was black and white back then.

 

[stanfr]

I was most into dinosaurs in the late 60s-early 70s. Therefore, they were psychedelic colors, baby...groovy

 

[Red Baron Farms]

here is one they know the color of:

Sinosauropteryx is the first fossil dinosaur to have its color scientifically established.[1]

 

[macdoc]

Yeah same source below

The primary colours of the cassowary in its neck and wattle are pigment based..

The feathers are irridescent but that's not a major feature until it's taken to the level of say a Victoria Riflebird.

makes them bloody hard to photograph...the AF does not like the irridescence for what ever reason

Feathered dinosaurs had the same and that is detected in fossils.

Iridescent, feathered dinosaur offers fresh evidence that ...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120308143159.htm
Mar 8, 2012 - Researchers have revealed that the small, feathered dinosaur Microraptor had a glossy iridescent sheen like a modern crow and that its tail

It's the pigment that is the major color component for the cassowary as it is in this bush turkey

The texture of skin and scales have come through in fine sediment fossils but not sure there is evidence of pigmentation in any of that.

I wonder if the irridescence is actually a camoflage making it hard for a predator to focus in the dim light of a rain forest.

Certainly in modern birds pigment and structure have combined.

Good info here
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/studying/feathers/color/document_view

ah - should have looked a bit further ....even pigmentation has been revealed

Dinosaur True Colors Revealed for First Time

Dinosaur True Colors Revealed for First Time
"Dino fuzz" pigment discovery in feathers may strengthen dinosaur-bird link.
By Chris Sloan, National Geographic magazine paleontology editor, for National Geographic News
An illustration depicting dinosaur Sinosauropteryx in true color, with a striped tail and orange back feathers
Sinosauropteryx is the first fossil dinosaur to have its color scientifically established.
ILLUSTRATION COURTESY JAMES ROBINS
Pigments have been found in fossil dinosaurs for the first time, a new study says.

The discovery may prove once and for all that dinosaurs' hairlike filaments—sometimes called dino fuzz—are related to bird feathers, paleontologists announced today. (Pictures: Dinosaur True Colors Revealed by Feather Find.)

The finding may also open up a new world of prehistoric color, illuminating the role of color in dinosaur behavior and allowing the first accurately colored dinosaur re-creations, according to the study team, led by Fucheng Zhang of China's Institute for Vertebrate Paleontology.

The team identified fossilized melanosomes—pigment-bearing organelles—in the feathers and filament-like "protofeathers" of fossil birds and dinosaurs from northeastern China.

Found in the feathers of living birds, the nano-size packets of pigment—a hundred melanosomes can fit across a human hair—were first reported in fossil bird feathers in 2008.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/01/100127-dinosaur-feathers-colors-nature/

Seems that cassowary would felt right at home in dino land.

The two most common types of melanin found in modern birds are eumelanin, associated with black and grey feathers, and phaeomelanin, found in reddish brown to yellow feathers.

Melanosomes of both types were found during the new study, providing "the first empirical evidence for reconstructing the colors and color patterning" in dinosaurs and Chinese fossil birds, Zhang and his colleagues write.

For example, the 125-million-year-old early bird Confuciusornis was found to have color variation between blacks and browns in a single feather. And dark areas in Sinosauropteryx's tail were "absolutely packed with phaeomelanosomes," said Benton—a finding that led the team to propose that the dinosaur's tail was striped with "chestnut to rufous [reddish brown] tones."

The University of Maryland's Holtz said, "It seems reasonable to infer that the same size and shape melanosomes in dinosaurs would have resulted in the same colors as in modern birds."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/01/100127-dinosaur-feathers-colors-nature/

another article on it

Feathered Dinosaur Colors Bloomed 150 Million Years Ago
Pigments colored early birds and mammals during the age of dinosaurs.
By Dan Vergano, National Geographic
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 14, 2014

snip

"The story wasn't as much about color, we think, as it was about physiology," Clarke says.

Melanin, the pigment protein inside melanosomes, is also involved in metabolism—how animals burn energy in their cells, Clarke says. These pigments broadened at a time when the first warm-blooded mammals and the flightless, feathered dinosaurs ancestral to modern birds were evolving.

"So this study offers a tantalising prospect—suggesting evidence for links between evolution of coloured feathers and metabolism," McNamara said, by email.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140212-bird-dinosaur-mammal-color-metabolism/

There's a twist...

I wonder if the pigment levels will allow a rough dating technique as far as development over time goes.
and it was not just proto-birds......but the big bruisers as well

Scientists have uncovered the first traces of pigment in reptile fossils - a dark hue found in three extinct deep-sea beasts distantly related to today's leatherback turtle.

"This is the first time that... remains of original pigments have been detected in any (extinct) reptile, including dinosaurs," Johan Lindgren of Sweden's Lund University said.

http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/techn...dinosaur-fossils-first-clue-their-skin-colour

Good time to be a dino artists....

Never know where a photograph might lead

 

[Dinwar]

Unfortunately there's very little data available for answering this question.

Color in feathers can be determined three ways: Physical structures that influence color can, in VERY rare cases, be preserved (and I have serious doubts as to how much detail such a method provides--it can, apparently, show dark and light patches, but that's only one axis on Munsell's chart); proteins associated iwth color can be preserved (though it's an open question as to whether we'd be able to identify them after 65+ ga--there may be multiple types that simply didn't survive to today); and whole feathers can be preserved in amber (though this is rare as hen's teeth). All three of these only assist in interpreting the coloration of dinosaurs with feathers, which wasn't all of them.

Ecologically we can make some assumptions. For example, we can assume that dinosaurs exhibited cryptocoloration, because literally every other vertebrate group does. We can assume that some were very vibrantly colored for the same reason. Sexual selection almost certainly had its influence on things, and without more data we pretty much can't say anything about that. Sexual dimorphism isn't limited to body size.

On my home computer, I have an artist's picture of hadrosaurs colored sort of like zebras. It makes perfect ecological sense--both groups are relatively large herbivores that traveled in herds, and having a similar defensive technique is well within the bounds of reasonable speculation. That's really the line of reasoning we're left with for most dinosaurs at this point: other critters do it/did it, and these fill the same ecological niche, so they might do it too.

The closest living relatives of any dinosaur is birds, though they are closer to some dinosaurs than they are to others.

As you say later in your post, birds are dinosaurs. For the same reason therapods in general are dinosaurs, or that ceratopsians are dinosaurs. That said, paraphyletic groupings (such as using "dinosaur" to mean "non-avian dinosaurs") are common in paleontology, since unlike biology the element of time is inherent in our study. Still, if you want to look at the nearest thing to a non-avian dinosaur that's extant, look at an emu. There's a reason Horner is using those to study the genetic shifts that lead to Avis.

 

[macdoc]

I'd rather look at the cassowaries which are also extant. Emus are seriously ugly and certainly nought much to be learned there of colour for attracting a mate.

The two species of rhea are in the order Rheiformes, family Rheidae. Emus and cassowaries are classified in the same order, Casuariiformes; emus belong to the family Dromaiidae, while cassowaries comprise the family Casuariidae

Read more: Flightless Birds - Ostriches, Rheas, Emus, Cassowaries, Kiwis - Ratites, Flying, Family, and Feathers - JRank Articles http://science.jrank.org/pages/2750/Flightless-Birds.html#ixzz3YENkXc48

I suspect he chose emus for the mundane reason that there are far more and they are captive in many areas.

This bird, the Hoatzin was covered off in Feathers....was a new one to me ....young has claws on the wing lending credence to the run up the tree with feathered wing assist theory of flight orgins.

 

[WhatRoughBeast]

If I'd known, as a kid, that birds were dinosaurs. Man. I'd be a scientist today. Bugger.

That's because xkcd http://xkcd.com/1104/ wasn't around then.

 

[Darwin123]

Birds from dinos was a evolutionary leap, colors might have happened along in there.

But modern reptiles also have lots of color, and are much nearer dinos. Besides chameleons, I have orange yellow green black brown blue gray silver white, all in my back yard.

The reptiles in your back yard are not closer to dinosaurs then to birds. Not unless your back yard includes alligators and crocodiles. Dinosaurs are not closely related to chameleons.


Birds are closer to dinosaurs than most reptiles. Crocodilians are much closer to dinosaurs than lizards, snakes and turtles.

You are confusing the reptile grade with the archosaur clade. Reptile does not have a phylogenic meaning. Birds, dinosaurs, crocodilians and pterosaurs belong in the clade referred to as archosaurs. These guys split off in the Permian period or later. Snakes, lizards and turtles split off from archosaurs earlier than the Permian.

Just a little explanation of jargon before I continue. Extant crocodilians include alligators, crocodiles, caiman and gavails. These are not lizards. Extant lizards include monitor lizards and iguana. Modern crocodilians are far more closer related to modern birds than lizards. Lizards and crocodilians have a superficial resemblance which does not reflect their ancestry.

There are two types of coloration in animals. There is pigmentation, where some chemicals absorb light by turning the light into heat energy. There is structural pigmentation, where some tiny structure disperses light waves into different directions. Extant birds show both types of coloration. I will mention some reasons to think that feathered dinosaurs had both types of coloration.


Crocodilians do have pigmentation.Hence, I don't believe there had to be a sudden leap in pigmentation going from the crocodile/dinosaur MRCA to extant birds. Crocodilians do not have feathers. So maybe the structural coloration in birds evolved separately from those of crocs.

So I don't believe that there was a sudden jump in pigmentation going from 'reptiles' to birds. The dinosaurs most probably had the same pigmentation available in their genetic tool kit as birds. Chemical analysis of fossils have shown that some feathered dinosaurs had pigmentation.

Feathers have a lot of microscopic features. So they would tend to disperse light in many directs. So I don't see how a feathered dinosaur could avoid evolving structural coloration. The microscopic structures haven't survived in fossil feathers. So we don't have direct proof that the dinosaurs had such coloration. However, I have confidence that Bragg's Law was just as valid in the Mesozoic as today. Basic physics doesn't change. So any small structure, in scale of feather, could produce structural coloration.


Lizards evolved structural variation associated with their scales, which have not homologous to feathers. Structural coloration in lizards and birds is analogous. So the fact that there are some colorful lizards has nothing to do with the fact there are colorful birds.

Pigmentation evolved in tetrapods real early. amphibians show a great deal of color based on pigmentation. So pigment molecules are a primitive feature. The coloration due to pigments may have started to evolve when the first tetrapod hauled himself/herself out of the water. So there could not have been a 'sudden leap' in coloration going from reptiles to birds. They are both pigmented due to common ancestry.

So I conjecture there was no 'sudden leap' in coloration going from 'reptiles' to 'birds'.

 

[macdoc]

The microscopic structures haven't survived in fossil feathers. So we don't have direct proof that the dinosaurs had such coloration.

pretty sure we do

Structural coloration in a fossil feather

Jakob Vinther , Derek E. G. Briggs , Julia Clarke , Gerald Mayr , Richard O. Prum
DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0524 Published 12 January 2010
ArticleFigures & DataInfo & MetricseLetters PDF
Abstract

Investigation of feathers from the famous Middle Eocene Messel Oil Shale near Darmstadt, Germany shows that they are preserved as arrays of fossilized melanosomes, the surrounding beta-keratin having degraded. The majority of feathers are preserved as aligned rod-shaped eumelanosomes. In some, however, the barbules of the open pennaceous, distal portion of the feather vane are preserved as a continuous external layer of closely packed melanosomes enclosing loosely aligned melanosomes. This arrangement is similar to the single thin-film nanostructure that generates an iridescent, structurally coloured sheen on the surface of black feathers in many lineages of living birds. This is, to our knowledge, the first evidence of preservation of a colour-producing nanostructure in a fossil feather and confirms the potential for determining colour differences in ancient birds and other dinosaurs.

http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/6/1/128

and

Newly Discovered Fossils Hint That All Dinosaurs May Have Had Feathers ...

Jul 24, 2014 - Over 30 species of non-avian dinosaurs have been confirmed to have feathers, either from direct fossilized evidence of feathers, or other indicators, such as quill knobs. Up until now, all of those dinosaurs were confirmed to be carnivorous theropods, like Velociraptor and the ancestors of birds.

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-an...vered-fossils-hint-all-dinosaurs-had-feathers

So we have both pigment and structural color elements and evidence that it's not just ancient birds.......get out the coloured crayons kids

 

[Roboramma]

The reptiles in your back yard are not closer to dinosaurs then to birds. Not unless your back yard includes alligators and crocodiles.

Even if his back yard does include alligators and crocodiles, they are still not as closely related to dinosaurs as are birds.

 

[Loss Leader]

Is there anybody who doesn't think we need to start cloning dinosaurs?