A dinosaur with multi coloured feathers been discovered in China. Scientist have discovered a birdlike dinosaur with rainbow feathers, in China. The feather display of the newly discovered dinosaur used to shine like a live rainbow.
In China’s Hebei province the fossil was uncovered and later on it was handed over to the Paleontological Museum of Liaoning. Then a research team carefully analyzed the tiny melanosomes, which are the cell parts in the fossil containing pigment.
The scientists, who have discovered that the Caihong had a flamboyant plumage, got published their study in the journal Nature Communications on 15th January 2018.
Scientists are still not clear about the origin of iridescence in birds, but the dinosaur gives a fair idea. The fossil, is 161 million years old, and is the earliest known instance of iridescence in a feathered dinosaur.
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Birds having iridescent features now, like the male birds of paradise, attract mates with flashy colors. Also, It is a tactic that other non-avian species of the animal kingdom do use. For example, peacock spiders do also use their tiny iridescent scales to their mates.
The Caihong has also assisted researchers gain more insight into other traits that birds have developed. This one had tail feathers, a long wing, a crest on its head, and couldn’t fly.
The Caihong is also the earliest known instance of a dinosaur with asymmetrical tail feathers indicating that the vane on its one side was larger than the one on the opposite side.
Reportedly, the pigment and shape of melanosomes determine the colors in animals.
“Hummingbirds have bright, iridescent feathers, but if you took a hummingbird feather and smashed it into tiny pieces, you’d only see black dust,” says Chad Eliason, a researcher at the Field Museum in Chicago.
He also adds that the pigment in the feathers is black, but the shapes of the melanosomes that does produce that pigment are what make the colors in hummingbird feathers that we can see.
The research team analyzed 66 points on the fossil, with the help of a microscope to observe the remains of melanosome shapes on fossil. They also detected melanosomes, which were circular & flat in shape, organized in columns on the tail, chest, and head of dinosaur.
The detected melanosomes were able to be compared to modern birds having the same shaped melanosomes in their iridescent feathers.
The discovery is suggesting that portions of the dinosaur’s feather coat were multicoloured as well as luminous like that of the throat of a hummingbird.
