Experiment Will Determine Dinosaur's Skin Color 98
AchilleTalon writes "One of the only well preserved dinosaur skin samples ever found is being tested at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) synchrotron to determine skin color and to explain why the fossilized specimen remained intact after 70-million years. University of Regina physicist Mauricio Barbi said the hadrosaur, a duck-billed dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period (100-65 million years ago), was found close to a river bed near Grand Prairie, Alberta."
Quite interresting (Score:5, Interesting)
Because this could also determine if they were feathered or not. No need for spectacular skin if feathered and probably need for colored skin if not feathered.
Disclaimer: Not an expert
Re:Quite interresting (Score:5, Funny)
Disclaimer: Not an expert
On Slashdot, we assume that about everyone.
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@Black Parrot
"Disclaimer: Not an expert
On Slashdot, we assume that about everyone."
At least we know that you have feathers.
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Re:Quite interresting (Score:5, Informative)
The hadrosaur under study is an ornithischian - a very, very distant relative that's more closely related to Stegosaurus and Triceratops. Psittacosaurus, a primitive horned dinosaur, did have tail bristles, but they appear to have been decorative for display and not feather-like at all.
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Actually, Coelurosauria are not the only feathered dinos anymore. I think they have found feather evidence on Carnosaurs as well making pretty much all theropods likely to have been feathered.
And let's not forget the "hairy" tail fans of the Psittacosaurus which certainly indicate that even ornithischians had non-scaly skin covering. Actually there is even more evidence of proto feather like structures in both ornithischians and saurischians.
http://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/blah-blah-feather [wordpress.com]
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Maybe by late cretaceous. Early on there would have been sour gymnosperms.
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Hmmm, I think that you're missing several well-known genera there - and the likelihood is high that there are as-yet-undisovered feathered dinosaur genera too. I'm thinking of - minimally - Archaeopteryx - but there have been others (Sciurumimus for example) which have "integumentary structures" which appear to have been feathers. Though not necessarily "contour" feathers as Archaeopteryx has.
Yes, the recent (last couple of decades) Chine
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No need for spectacular skin if feathered and probably need for colored skin if not feathered.
I'm not sure about your logic. Tigers have stripey pigmented skin despite being covered in fur. Polar bears have pigmented skin despite being covered in fur. There's also an assumption that a feathered dinosaur would be covered in feathers, when they may have only had them on limbs or in prominent places for display purposes.
Realistic Dinosaur costumes ... (Score:2)
I like the creepy, lizard-like monstrosities. We've already gone from HR Giger dinosaurs to Jim Henson dinosaurs
Re:Realistic Dinosaur costumes ... (Score:5, Funny)
Not the mama!
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Haha, imagine you're the one who has to publish that all the dinosaurs were shiny pink!
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OMG! Ponisaurs!!!
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OMG! Ponisaurs!!!
SQUEEE.
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Worse still, what if they were purple [wikipedia.org].
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The 'scary' factor for birds is quite offset by how delicate they are.
In fact, I can't say I know of a single bird that really looks scary. Sure, bigger I've seen, but not scary.
Millions of years of primate evolution next to 'soft fuzzy thing that squeeks and explodes into a puff of feathers when hit with rock' seems to have bred out any 'fear' response for birds in me.
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Green and Slimy (Score:1)
They were different shades of Green, some almost Brown in color. Hunters such as T-Rex had multi-colors, a mixture of Green and Brown to better blend in with the surrounding brush. The really tall Dinosaurs actually developed a mildew on their Skin due to collecting Pollen, Bird feces and other organics and being unable to bathe like their smaller counterparts. At least that's my Theory. =)
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So are you saying that a Supersaurus was dexterous enough to roll around on the ground? This isn't a small Cat we're talking about here. Here we have a very large, very heavy Reptile-ish creature. We should all know by now that the larger something is, the less agile it can be. Even a Cat can't reach some points on it's body.
And this isn't a Bird, what use would a brightly colored Supersaurus be, it would be a target if anything. I'm sticking to what I said, I'm sure it was a darker shade. The examples you
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Supersaurus sounds like something on Disney, with a teenage American accident.
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Notice how clean cats keep themselves?
That's just because they know it looks cute, and gets them additional food. It's got nothing to do with hunting - otherwise, why would dogs stink so much?
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I'm pretty sure that the absence of any supporting evidence whatsoever disqualifies your hypotheses from the lofty title of "theory".
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No, AFAIK it was just conjecture at the time. There wasn't the DNA or knowledge of DNA to know what color the dinosaurs should be. This was also millions of years before Kodachrome so the only pictures we have are in black and white or various monochrome pigmentation.
Fortunately, with a skin sample we might learn what color one specific dinosaur was. But, it's safe to say that it was some sort of earth tone.
Dinosaurs closer to Birds (Score:4, Insightful)
In the past many think that Dinosaurs were most closely related to reptiles but we now know that Dinosaurs are most closely related to birds and thus may have the colour variations that one sees in birds rather than the colour variation seen in Lizards.
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Birds are reptiles now.
Yeah and my pet budgie's a fucking crocodile.
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Yes they are. Although in common everyday language usually "reptiles" means those scale covered green or brown land creatures, in taxonomy all living and extinct bird species are part of the reptilia class.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avialae [wikipedia.org]
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What is a Chameleon?
All things to everyone
Run run away
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Birds ARE the Dinosaurs.
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So Alfred Hithcock's "The birds" was really Jurassic Park 5 Revenge 65 million years later?
Re:Dinosaurs closer to Birds (Score:4, Informative)
Why do birds descending from dinosaurs rule out reptiles descending from dinosaurs?
Given the huge amount of dinosaur races, wouldn't it be more likely that different dinosaur races evolved into different types of animals over time? This would make them equally related to dinosaurs, but not the same dinosaurs. For all we know their common ancestor could be a pre dinosaur animal even though both were dinosaurs at one point in time.
Actually dinosaurs (and birds now) are reptiles, but they're not lizards. While dinosaurs and lizards (and crocodilians) are descended from the same family tree, the dinosaurs and birds have very distinguishable anatomic differences. Dinos and birds have their legs stretched under them, while the rest of the reptiles have their legs stretched out of the sides.
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In the past many think that Dinosaurs were most closely related to reptiles but we now know that Dinosaurs are most closely related to birds and thus may have the colour variations that one sees in birds rather than the colour variation seen in Lizards.
Did anyone else hear this in the voice of Richard Kiley?
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Birds' color variation is typically in their feathers, not their skin.
And birds are dinosaurs. The dinosaurs didn't become extinct, they just suffered a massive loss of biodiversity. Only a tiny tiny slice of dinosaur species made it through the extinction event, and they lead to today's birds.
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And birds are dinosaurs. The dinosaurs didn't become extinct, they just suffered a massive loss of biodiversity. Only a tiny tiny slice of dinosaur species made it through the extinction event, and they lead to today's birds.
Today's birds did not evolve from any "traditional" dinosaurs that survived the K-T event. Anatomically modern birds (Neornithes [wikipedia.org]) were already well-established in the late Cretaceous and distinct from "traditional" dinosaurs. This is why I do not like the whole "birds ARE dinosaurs!" meme because the situation is a little more complex than that.
Yes, birds are (probably) dinosaurs, and reptiles, and chordates. Mammals are also chordates. So are amphibians. So are fish. But nobody "corrects" someone tal
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You're the first person I've encountered, other than a particularly deranged creationist from St Albans, to claim that "the birds" are descended from dinosaurs that survived either the Chixulub impact or the end-Cretaceous mass extinction (it remains to be proved that those two events are the same, though they certainly happened close together in time - within a few hundred thousand years of each other). Everyone who h
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You're the first person I've encountered, other than a particularly deranged creationist from St Albans, to claim that "the birds" are descended from dinosaurs that survived either the Chixulub impact or the end-Cretaceous mass extinction
I believe you misread my statement, as I did not claim that birds descended from dinosaurs that survived the K-T event - I was stating the opposite to correct the AC above. As I mentioned, no known dinosaur clades survived the extinction event, aside from the Neornithe birds (who had already been distinct from dinosaurs for some time). When discussing the extinction event (or really, any period post-Jurassic) it seems useful to call birds "birds", since they were already anatomically distinct and all other
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Given that both birds and reptiles come in all sorts of colours with all sorts of patterns I can't help but feel that your post has placed me firmly back where I was before I started reading it.
spoiler (Score:1)
it's beige
Can't we just instead (Score:4, Funny)
Judge them by the content of their character?
I'm putting my bet in on.... (Score:2)
I don't see color (Score:1)
Does skin color really matter? Are we still not able to look past it?
Re:I don't see color (Score:4, Informative)
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Sure we can. Right up until your daughter's of dating age.
I'd be grateful if you could explain the difference between that statement and a piece of racist shit. Because I can't see one.
"Score +5, Informative" eh? I always forget that retards get modpoints too on slashdot.
Re:Ed, what an ugly thing to say... (Score:2)
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Sure we can. Right up until your daughter's of dating age.
Somehow I think most of us draw the line at letting our child date a dinosaur. Doctors, ok; rich businessmen, ok; even maybe a rich businessman from the wrong (ie. other) side of the Mason-Dixon line, but no dinosaurs, dammit!
The color of their skin????? (Score:5, Funny)
Instead of knowing the color of their skin, I would be more interested in knowing the content of their character.
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Damn! I *just* missed that one.
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Their character is very stony and rigid. They're very resistant to change. They're never the life of the party, but they also won't leave unless you escort them out. All in all, having one for an acquaintance is likely to be a rocky experience.
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Awesome with the snake, didn't know that. Slightly different, but don't let us forget that alligators and their cousins sort of sit on their nests... not to keep them warm (the decaying leaves do that) but to protect the eggs from egg stealers.
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Yes.
To both questions. Simultaneously.
An animal can be "warm blooded" (i.e. maintain a relatively high and constant internal temperature) without having a physiological mechanism for maintaining that temperature. Some animals can do it well-enough using behaviour alone.
Some things you just DON'T want to know (Score:2)
That way no myths are shattered, and I would always enjoy being terrified watching Jurassic Park
Otherwise, I'd have to lean over and tell my kids, They're probably out-of-work dinosaurs that hang out in empty Hollywood lots, waiting for the pickup truck to come get them. Same as those out-of-work 'bad ass' bikers waiting for a different pickup, but still waiting for that same type of call, for their next walk-on role.
Dinosaur color (Score:1)