What color does prehistoric birds have?

If you have the opportunity to visit nature reserves, you will admire the beautiful colors of the birds - monochrome, shimmering colors. It is thought that their color is to adapt to the attraction of their partners, to identify individuals of the same species among the crowd, .

Recently, scientists have identified and detected pigmented particles called melanosomes in bird fossils very early as well as in some dinosaurs and they predict the color of pigments in melanosomes. Based on size and shape of pigment particles.

However, melanosomes found in intact fossils are rare, the Manchester University team developed a method to track their tracks using X-ray fluorescence scanning. This allows them to detect very low levels of elements on large surfaces. As a result, they found traces of ancient fossil bird pigments such as Archeopteryx fossils 150 million years old and Confuciusornis 120 million years old. In addition, the group also detected pigments in fish fossils and squid. Furthermore, in the case of prehistoric bird fossils, the analysis results show that the pigment particles are derived from bird feathers.

Scans obtained by chemical methods of fossil Confuciusornis 120 million years show traces of pigments of prehistoric birds.

However, this is just the original discovery, and they have not enough evidence to conclude the true feather color of the fossil bird. But the team plans to create a collection of fossil data and compare the colors of prehistoric specimens to the live animals to decipher the color of the feathers of ancient birds.