Comments on: Old Colors: First Birds, Then Dinosaurs?

By: Captain Skellett

Captain Skellett — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:43:45 +0000

Jurrasic Park – Now in Real Colours!

By: Phil Terry

Phil Terry — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:01:41 +0000

We linked to your article from our Facebook group on Darwin – where we have 250,000 members celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of “Origin…”

It was a great piece – thank you.

Phil
Founder, Darwin150
On our way to 1 million, help us get there
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=53320310123

By: me

me — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:17:55 +0000

“It’s not dead, it’s just dormant due to the lack of ambient heat.”

By: John Monfries

John Monfries — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:35:05 +0000

Just fascinating – it’s this kind of thing that keeps me coming back to your blog.

Look out for a “”Walking with Dinosaurs” using the real colours in another five years.

Kenneth Branagh saying “…and now we have the Norwegianbluosaurus. You can admire its beautiful plumage”.

By: Mike Haubrich, FCD

Mike Haubrich, FCD — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 06:11:01 +0000

This is pretty cool. The colour assumptions that artists have been using since Owen’s day seem to be based mostly based on the assumption of a camouflage adaptation, neglecting such goodies as sexual selection or predator distraction, etc, etc.

I have always loved your sense of humor, too, Carl. Slipping in a Monty Python reference. Good.

By: DD

DD — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:59:12 +0000

Many other organisms have transparent tissues, some (eg. fish) become almost invisible. Land animals seem exceptional that only the eye lens and fingernail/claw/scale/feather base are transparent. Any idea why? UV damage?

By: The Ridger

The Ridger — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:54:44 +0000

Oh, so cool.

By: amphiox

amphiox — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:36:25 +0000

#2: I don’t think there would have been any need. It’s pretty likely that the dinosaurs had tetrachromatic color vision from the very beginning. Tetrachromatic vision was probably the primitive condition for stem amniotes. (And, in fact, I think there are some fish with up to 7 different opsin genes)

Mammals are the exception. A hundred million years or so of nocturnal life resulted in the loss of 2/4 opsin genes, while certain primates secondarily recovered trichromatic color vision later thanks to gene duplications.

By: Bob O'H

Bob O'H — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:56:20 +0000

Damn, I can’t get access to the paper. But I guess the fossil is kept in Frankfurt, which is where I’m going next month.

P.S. I think Grrlscientist would appreciate a copy of the paper. Any chance…?

By: Max

Max — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:43:46 +0000

Every kid’s dream

By: johnk

johnk — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:41:59 +0000

I’d guess that colored plumage or skin color would be accompanied by the evolution of color vision. Is anything known about that?

By: Brownian

Brownian — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:36:30 +0000

*Gasp!*

You mean we might actually know the colours of dinosaurs?!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!