WE MAY soon know what colour dinosaurs were thanks to a new study that examined 40 million-year-old fossilised feathers.
These animals are mostly portrayed in uninteresting shades of grey, but scientists at Yale University believe they may soon learn whether their colours were more like that of a peacock or a parrot.
The work, published this morning in the journal Biology Letters, involved identifying tiny structures seen in the ancient feathers.
“For the last 20 odd years it was understood that the sausage-shaped structures found on fossilized feathers were bacteria,” said Prof Derek Briggs, Yale University’s Frederick William Beinecke professor of geology and geophysics, who led the research.
Similar structures were known to exist in modern birds and, in a major discovery, Prof Briggs and his team reported last year that these structures were in fact the melanin containing part of cells.
Because melanin is the major biological pigment responsible for skin colour in humans, this pointed to possibly being able to determine the colour of extinct birds and even dinosaurs. The scientists are now a step closer to this goal.
Using an electron microscope to look at fossilised feathers from the Messel Shale in Germany, the team observed this smooth melanin structure in samples more than 40 million years old.
"This is absolutely painstaking work. We are looking at dandruff-sized pieces of material," said Prof Briggs, who is originally from Dublin and is a past recipient of the RDS/ Irish TimesBoyle Medal for scientific excellence.
“Our ultimate target is seeing similar structures in dinosaurs. Assumptions are made about the colour of dinosaurs based on function. It’s very speculative. Nobody really knows.”
If Prof Briggs and his team are successful, this could soon change. The race is now on to find the melanin-related structures.