Breaking news: Dinosaur color uncovered

I recently read an article talking about dinosaur color. A recent discovery in China reveals the color of dinosaur feathers! Researchers came to the conclusion that the theropod Sinosauropteryx had bristles in orange and white rings down its tail. Researchers also concluded that the bird Confuciusornis had patches of white, black and orange-brown coloring.

The teams of paleontologists from the University of Bristol in the UK and The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, China report two different kinds of melanosomes found in numerous feathers of birds and dinosaurs from Southeast China.

Melanosomes are organelles that bear color that are found within feathers and hair in modern animals. Because melanosomes are a part of the protein structure of the feather, they survive with the feather.

This is the first report of melanosomes being present in the feathers of dinosaurs and early birds. These discoveries confirm that birds evolved from a line of theropod dinosaurs. It also shows that the unique characteristics that make a modern bird evolved over about 50 million years of dinosaur evolution, through the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

Source: http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2010/6806.html