Hi, this is Ezekiel O'Callaghan with Raptor Chatter and today, we're going to be looking at the colors of dinosaurs and
why they're important and how they can help us understand extinctions today
25 years ago
Jurassic Park gave new insights into what dinosaurs would have been like the velociraptors gave people the idea of quick fast intelligent dinosaurs
Whereas the Brachiosaurus which is arguably a giraffatitan at the beginning helped to cement the idea that yes
This is what dinosaurs were like yes. This is how dinosaurs behaved, and yes, this is what dinosaurs looked like.
But we've come a long way in the last 25 years and the dinosaurs we know today, don't look like the ones on my socks.
Melanosome analysis is one of the newest and most exciting techniques developing in paleontology
For years children and scientists have wondered, what color were dinosaurs?
And now we can answer that question
a 2010 study published in Nature showed that using the electron microscopes we can scan across fossils that have soft tissue
preservation so things like feathers and skin and we can find melanosomes still preserved in the rock
and so now we can tell those children and scientists that yes
Anchiornis was black and white like a magpie with a red crest on its head or that
Microraptor had a black iridescent like a crow or a grackle
We can tell what color dinosaurs were or at least some of them
Life on Earth is very visual and different species use colors for different things
raccoon uses its bandit like mask to help obscure its eyes and reduce glare from the Sun
A tiger's stripes act as camouflage. The lizard uses its bright belly to attract a mate and
Lemurs use their banded tails to signal to each other
Almost every living thing on earth uses colors and these colors come from melanosomes
The parts of cells that absorb and reflect light. Now the fossilized melanosomes that we do have are
Just shapes nothing actually giving color
But we can compare these to the melanosomes in modern species to get an understanding of how the fossilized species may have looked
But 2012 study on Microraptor published in science looked at its melanosomes finding that they were greater than a 90%
match to the shape and size of melanosomes we find in modern-day birds with the iridescence such as crows or grackles.
Another article in the
2013 Journal of analytical atomic spectrometry looked at Archaeopteryx and found that it had dark wingtips
This is an adaptation we see in modern birds as it helps to strengthen the feather for flight, and so these modern analogs
We have helped to reinforce what we are seeing in the fossil record.
Now, color is great to have we can tell that small theropod dinosaurs like Microraptor had signalling colors or anchiornis had signaling colors
But we can tell even more from this we can tell about environments from this in 2016 a particularly well-preserved
Specimen as a Psittacosaurus was described in current biology
This specimen was unique because the first time scientists were able to find melanosomes coming from the skin rather than feathers of the dinosaur
The studies found that the Psittacosaurus 
was darkly counter shaded with a light belly being contrasted by its dark sides and back
This same study looked at light diffusion and different environments and found that this kind of countershading works best if it's in a heavily wooded enviornment
Psittacosaurus  was an unassuming and small herbivore who eventually found great success as it
Or its relatives and their descendants would eventually evolve into the mighty ceratopsians such as the iconic triceratops
likewise Borealopelta is described with countershading in August 2017 in current biology
The paper showed its contrast to modern-day species that are similarly sized like rhinoceros or elephants
And so Borealopelta was heavily armored with long spines and spikes
But it was afraid
Because of this despite not finding any carnivores from the site Borealopelta was discovered in
Its become safe to say that there was something that could pose a threat to adult armored dinosaurs
And so from color were able to get inferences about
environments predator/prey relationships, but we can also make inferences about
breeding. Anchiornis which I mentioned earlier as having a red crest likely use it as a display structure as
These creatures are quite literally birds before Birds
Behaviorally very visual as seen with microraptor's iridescent and Anchiornis's crest and their ability to fly
However feathers didn't evolve for flight. The first feathers from North America
were described in 2012 in a paper published in science and these feathers came from an ornithomimus
so if you remember Jurassic Park the ones that are
Flocking this way would be something similar to those
but feathered. Now these specimens were important because it had specimens that were both juveniles and adult individuals and
So from this were able to see the growth of feathers with the juveniles having the unofficial term Dino fuzz
Coverings and the adults having long flight type feathers and while both would be too heavy to fly if they had those feathers it
Is important to realize that
Just like a peacock chick doesn't hatch with a long tail it seems like the feathers didn't grow long for the same reason
Meaning that they were probably for display in adult individuals, and so the feathers evolved not for flight
But to look nice to look pretty even the colors that we're finding on our first feathered dinosaur Sinosauropteryx have given us tremendous insight
In October 26 2017 a paper was published in Nature
Which showed that I had a bandit like mask across it's eyes much like a raccoon coatimundi or some of the lemurs
However, also like some of these species it had a long banded tail and so in modern species
This is used for signaling between species as a 2009 article in the journal comparative psychology shows in a study of ring-tailed lemurs
And so it seems as though Sinosauropteryx would be at least semi gregarious and using its tail to signal to others in it's species
With this in mind David Hone, and his April 2017 speech to the Royal Institution
Mentions that it's important we don't overanalyze every fossil so perhaps Sinosauropteryx wasn't gregarious
However a study of Buitreraptor a related Coelurosaur looked at its tail and found that it was very flexible at the base
but had strong ligaments across the rest of it, so it could be held up for long periods of time
and this adaptation would have needed some purpose and communication would have been a very good purpose for this kind of adaptation
and we can apply all this as a species by species view of
Extinction we can pick out reasons that some species may have gone extinct based on the behaviour we find them having in the fossil record
And so things like ornithomimus needing to maintain their feathers in order to continue breeding
We can apply that to sea birds and our need to make sure we clean up oil spills and protect our oceans we can look
at things like Sinosauropteryx with its bandit mask and tail it's lighter colors leading to lighter countershading for open environments and
Recognize the need to protect those sorts of environments for things like lemurs or red pandas
We can look at species like Anchiornis and Microraptor and their need for open spaces to show off their plumage
But also trees to fly in hunt among and apply that to modern day species like bowerbirds or birds of paradise
we can apply the knowledge that we've gained based on colors of extinct species and
Translate that
Immediately over to living species and how to protect them so that they do not fall the same way
so we might be able to stop species by species extinction based on the fossil record
but we may not have time to stop species by species extinction because we may already be entering another mass extinction
The 2013 paper published by the paleontological society mentions that we see differences in the five largest mass extinctions in history
But that we don't know why those differences exist just that they're there
The largest extinction in history at the end of the Permian is still having causes added to it and from places we thought we had already researched
A 2011 study by the Geological Society of America looked at evidence in the Sverdrup Basin a place
Which had already been researched in the 1900s
Now this study showed that co2 and mercury levels in the water pressured the the environment before a massive surge in global warming
Caused by massive volcanic eruptions, which were burning coal beneath them led to the death
of 90% of species on earth
another paper by the paleontological Society in 2008 looks at the press pulse mechanics of extinction
a pressure is put on a planet
So something like lowering water levels with the dinosaurs or the co2 and mercury for the Permian and then a pulse strikes like a meteor
Like massive volcanic eruptions and wipes out life
We've already put a lot of pressure on this planet and we don't know what our pulse will be or what it will do
How many species what a meteor strike kill?
How many species would Yellowstone's eruption kill?
How many species were to nuclear or even just a small nuclear war kill?
We may not be able to save every species
But we might be able to save someone
Hello, everyone. Thank you for watching
This is a speech that I might actually be performing for
competition which is part of the reason it gets so dark there at the end as judges love big impacts of everything dying and
Drama and all of that so it's a good idea to have it there
so some of the logical jumps that are there haven't been completely confirmed and have just been theorized
but they all do stand up to logical reason I would also like to thank my editor and all the
Researchers for helping me make this possible as without the research or the editing with fantastic editing
I have I would not have been able to compete this video
I also want to mention that there is a new paper that came out actually today as
I am recording this which actually mentions a new species that was found with even more bright plumage and so that's something that I will
Link down below so that you can look at that as it is even more relevant than some of the stuff that I had already
Mentioned thank you again for watching
leave a comment if you think I forgot anything and
Remember to follow my Twitter if you want updates on one videos are coming out and be safe take care save the planet
