Dinosaur-era feather colors revealed

Science Fair: Dinosaur-era feather colors revealed
High-tech X-rays point to the feather colors of some of the oldest-known birds, reports a study looking back at the Age of Dinosaurs.

Released by the journal Science, the study led by Roy Wogelius of the United Kingdom's University of Manchester looks at avian fossils found in Chinese bone beds dating to more than 105 million years ago. The species, Confuciusornis sanctus, is the oldest known beaked bird.

"Feather color in birds stems mostly from chemical pigments, of which the most widely used are melanins. Resolving color patterns in extinct species may hold the key to understanding selection processes that acted during crucial evolutionary periods and also may help discern non-flight functions such as camouflage, communication, and sexual selection," begins the study.

Recent studies have uncovered ancient feather colors based upon molecular shapes of these wing color melanins. But in the new study, the team takes the analysis step further, analyzing them with X-rays that reveal their chemistry, in particular trace metals such as copper that lead to coloration, so-called 'eumelanin' pigments tied today to dark colors in creatures' feathers, fur and hair.

"This is a pigment that evolved a very, very long time ago but is still actively synthesized by organisms on the planet, and we found a way to map it and show its presence over 120 million years of geological time passing," said Wogelius, in a statement. "It is a direct relationship between you, me, and some extremely old organisms."

So, what did the find? "Trace metals in C. sanctus are high in the downy feathers," says the study. Flight feathers don't show as much pigment, suggesting they were white. "This suggests that Confuciusornis sanctus most probably had darkly shaded regions, with the most intense eumelanin pigmentation in the downy body feathers," concludes the study.