Photograph by Jakob Vinther
In the Beijing Museum of Natural History, the team behind the new study in Science, co-led by Yale University's Jakob Vinther, found an Anchiornis skeleton (pictured) preserved in an ochre-colored slab of mudstone.
With
fossilized "protofeathers" bursting from the bones in every
direction—and faint evidence of dark and light markings—the fossil was
an ideal target for researchers seeking prehistoric
melanosomes,pigment-bearing organelles within feathers.
The
microscopic particles were first found preserved in a fossil—in this
case, a prehistoric bird—by Vinther and his team in 2008. The particles
had previously been interpreted in fossils as bacteria.
In modern
birds, different types of melanosomes are known to produce different
colors in feathers. Eumelanosomes are rodlike and are associated with
the colors black and gray. Phaeomelanosomes are round and produce colors
ranging from reddish brown to yellow. A lack of melanosomes makes
white.