Some dino feather colors identified

[Staff]

Some dino feather colors identified
Jan. 27, 2010
Courtesy Bristol University and World Science staff

Some dino feather colors identified
excerpt from above:

“Our re­search pro­vides ex­tra­or­di­nary in­sights in­to the or­i­gin of feath­ers. In par­tic­u­lar, it helps to re­solve a long-stand­ing de­bate about the or­i­ginal func­tion of feath­ers – wheth­er they were used for flight, in­sula­t­ion, or dis­play. We now know that feath­ers came be­fore wings, so feath­ers did not or­i­ginate as flight struc­tures,” said pa­le­on­tol­o­gist Mike Ben­ton at the Univers­ity of Bris­tol, U.K., one of the sci­en­tists.

“We there­fore sug­gest that feath­ers first arose as agents for colour dis­play and only lat­er in their ev­o­lu­tion­ary his­to­ry did they be­come use­ful for flight and in­sula­t­ion.”

[Staff]

Dinosaur Colors Revealed in Full
Submitted by LiveScience Staff
posted: 06 February 2010 01:13 pm ET

Dinosaur Colors Revealed in Full | LiveScience Etc.
excerpt from above:

Scientists have reconstructed the likely coloring of the dinosaur Anchiornis huxleyi, using magnified images of fossil feathers. Researchers are billing it as the first "full-body color patterns of a dinosaur."

[Pahinh Winh]

a cross between a red-headed woodpecker & a magpie. Gorgeous!