“Consequently, we are able to confidently fill in a few of the original color patterns of these ancient animals”.
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The study specifically looked at a species of bat that lived 50 million years ago, analyzing the melanin content therein. Each of these samples preserves melanin, which appears throughout the majority of the fossil record. Also, they can paint a more vivid picture of the prehistoric environment where these animals once roamed.
The study was published online September 28 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In addition, Virginia Tech University geological studies PhD student Caitlin Colleary notes, “Since so little is preserved in the fossil record, the color of extinct animals has always been left up to artists’ interpretations, and important information regarding behavior has been considered inaccessible”.
That was a finding that seemed minor at that point but it is huge today since melanosomes’ shape differ depending on the type of skin pigment, or type of melanin, they produce.
The team of researchers also used an instrument called a time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometer to identify the molecular makeup of the fossil melanosomes in order to compare them with modern ones. Any attempt of associating a skin color with a certain dinosaur has been so far a guesswork. For the first time, they revealed the color of two of the earliest known bats, on Monday.
Yet these “bacteria”, the researchers found, were actually fossilized melanosomes.
Since then, the shapes of melanosomes have been used to look at how marine reptiles are related and identify colours in dinosaurs and, now, mammals. They were also able to replicate the condition in which the fossils formed, allowing them to work out how the chemical signatures have changed over the millions of years.
Scientists have previously been divided on whether such structures can be used to infer colour, or are fossilised bacteria that ate at an animal before it was buried.
After a series of examinations, results show that extinct bats were a reddish brown.
In this breakthrough process, a team of scientists from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and University of Bristol revealed that they can utilize special microscopic structures to indicate the color of fossilized remains of mammals which was first thought to be lost forever.
Melanin comes in two distinct colours: reddish brown phaeomelanin and black eumelanin.
“It’s interesting because now we are looking at dinosaurs with feathers, and that’s obviously very different from what was in the books when I was a kid”.
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Determining the color of ancient animals will be key to understanding how life evolved, researchers said. Summons says that “color is a factor in how individuals recognize and respond to others, determine friend or foe, and find mates”.
