Pictures: Dinosaur's Flashy Feathers Revealed

Iridescent Dinosaurs
Photo illustration courtesy Jason Brougham, University of Texas
According to a new study, Microraptors—four-winged, feathered dinosaurs that lived 125 million years ago—sported Earth's earliest known iridescence, as pictured in this illustration.
Recent research suggests the pigeon-size Microraptor's feathers glimmered black and blue in sunlight, like feathers of modern crows or grackles.
The findings are the earliest evidence of iridescence in any creature-bird or dinosaur, said study leader Julia Clarke, a paleontologist at the University of Texas at Austin.
Clarke and colleagues also suggest this iridescent coloring may have helped make Microraptor's tail feathers even more eye-catching to mates.
Using an electron microscope, the researchers compared tiny, pigment-containing structures called melanosomes in a Microraptor fossil to melanosomes of living birds.
The team found that Microraptor's melanosomes were narrow, elongated, and organized in a sheetlike orientation—features that produce an iridescent sheen on modern feathers.
"This study gives us an unprecedented glimpse at what this animal looked like when it was alive," study team member Mark Norell, chair of the American Museum of Natural History's Division of Paleontology, said in a statement.
(See "True-Color Dinosaur Revealed: First Full-Body Rendering.")
The new findings are detailed in this week's issue of the journalScience.
—Ker Than
Published March 9, 2012
Tail Streamers
Illustration courtesy Mick Ellison, Science/AAAS
Limbs spread, a Microraptor shows off its iridescent plumage and two tail feathers, called streamers, in an illustration.
Hints of streamer feathers were visible in earlier Microraptor fossils, but the streamers were incomplete, explained study co-author Clarke.
"You can actually make them out, but they're broken, so you can't see the ends of them," she said.
Not until the discovery of a new Microraptor fossil in northeastern China in 2010 did scientists get their first clear picture of what the dinosaur's tail looked like.
Once thought to be a broad, teardrop-shaped surface, the tail was actually much narrower and tipped by two long feathers, the new fossils suggest.
The new findings also support a theory first proposed by Clarke in 2006 that the evolution of tail feathers in early birds was driven primarily by sexual selection rather than aerodynamics.
According to this idea, tail feathers were a costly structure that only much later became important for flight, Clarke said.
(Related picture: "Dinosaur Species Flew Like a Biplane.")
Published March 9, 2012
Microraptor Frozen in Time
Photograph courtesy Mick Ellison
A Microraptor fossil discovered in 2010 (pictured), allowed scientists to determine that the dinosaur had iridescent feathers.
"Just a few years ago, it would have been inconceivable for us to have imagined doing a study like this," study team member Ke-Qin Gao of Peking University in Beijing said in a statement.
Although its anatomy is very similar to bird anatomy, Microraptor is considered a non-avian dinosaur, and is thus placed in the group of dinosaurs called dromaeosaurs, which includes the ferocious Velociraptor.
Study co-author Clarke said many questions remain about Microraptor's feathers. For example, "we don't know if [they had] more of a greenish-blue iridescence, or a more purplish iridescence."
(See "Dinosaur True Colors Revealed for First Time.")
Published March 9, 2012
In Fine Feather
Photograph courtesy Mick Ellison
The new findings contradict previous theories that Microraptor was a nocturnal dinosaur. That's because dark, glossy plumage (pictured, a modern bird feather) is not a trait found in existing nocturnal birds.
Modern birds can see wavelengths of light and hues invisible to humans, and it's possible that Microraptor had the same abilities, Clarke added.
"The way we perceive this animal and the way its close relatives would've seen it would be different," she said. "Exactly how different, I don't think we know now, but that would be an interesting question for future research."
Published March 9, 2012
Spotted Dino
Illustration by Xing Lida, National Geographic
Anchiornis, another feathered dinosaur, which lived during the middle Jurassic period—some 40 million years before Microraptor—is shown mid-leap.
A 2010 study that examined melanosomes from Anchiornis fossils suggested the creature had black-and-white spotted wings and rust-colored feathers on its head.
The new Microraptor research will lead to more scientifically correct illustrations of feathered dinosaurs and early birds, Brown University's Carney said. (See "Pictures: Evolution of Dinosaur Art.")
"This study provides yet another addition—iridescence—to the palette that scientists now have available for reconstructing the colors of dinosaur plumage," he said.
Published March 9, 2012
Next: Dinosaur True Colors Revealed for First Time >>
Image courtesy Chuang Zhao and Lida Xing
Published March 9, 2012

1 comments

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Babu Ranganathan

MICRORAPTOR WASN'T A DINOSAUR! It was a bird, a unique bird with four wings (it had fully-formed feathers!), but evolutionists classified it as a dinosaur to fit their theory. All of its traits were fully-formed and developed (not in a transitional state, i.e. part scales/part feathers). Species in a true transitional state wouldn't be fit for survival because their traits wouldn't be fully-developed or formed. Imagine a dinosaur with limbs evolving into wings and feathers over millions of years. It couldn't fully use its limbs and it couldn't fully use its wings and feathers. How would it be fit for survival over millions of years while it was evolving? Read the excellent Internet article, IS NEW FOSSIL A BIRD-EATING DINOSAUR? by biologist and creationist Brian Thomas.

NOT DINOSAUR FEATHERS! There's a lot of hype out there in the media. Read the interesting Internet article by biologist and creationist Brian Thomas, FEATHERS MISSING FROM 'FEATHERED DINOSAUR' DISPLAY. What some interpret as feathers may have been nothing more than "artifacts of the fossilization process, or partly decayed skin fibers."

Read my popular Internet articles, NO HALF-EVOLVED DINOSAURS, NATURAL LIMITS OF EVOLUTION, FISH DNA DOESN'T SUPPORT EVOLUTION OF LIMBS

Visit my popular Internet site, THE SCIENCE SUPPORTING CREATION

Babu G. Ranganathan*
B.A. Bible/Biology

Author of the popular Internet article, TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF HELL EVOLVED FROM GREEK ROOTS

*I have had the privilege of being recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis "Who's Who In The East" for my writings on religion and science, and I have given successful lectures (with question and answer time afterwards) defending creation from science before evolutionist science faculty and students at various colleges and universities.

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Pictures: Dinosaur's Flashy Feathers Revealed

Iridescent Dinosaurs

Tail Streamers

Microraptor Frozen in Time

In Fine Feather

Spotted Dino

Next: Dinosaur True Colors Revealed for First Time >>