Colorizing Dinosaurs: Feather Pigments Reveal Appearance of
Extinct Animals  Long the range of the imagination, the
coloration--and origin--of feathered dinosaurs and ancient birds
has begun to be revealed through fossilized organelles fossil
dinosaur color feather   For nearly two centuries, people have
struggled to imagine what the great extinct dinosaurs looked
like. Thanks to modern paleontology and physiology, their
shapes, masses and even how they might have moved and interacted
have been deduced. But one of the most basic questions about
their appearance, their coloring, seemed unanswerable.  A new
study, however, proposes some of the first cellular hints.
Extrapolating from primitive pigment-giving organelles known as
melanosomes (which contain the coloring compound melanin and are
still prevalent in modern animals) that have been found in
fossilized dinosaur feathers from the Cretaceous period, a
research team paints a picture of dark wings and brightly
striped reddish tails. The findings will be det