Vinther figured there was no reason pigment grains and melanosomes wouldn't survive in other fossilized creatures. He took a closer look at the suspicious dark smudges in an extinct bird fossil and ...

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New research reveals that recently-described 155-million-year-old Anchiornis huxleyi, a woodpecker-like dinosaur the size of a modern-day domesticated chicken, had black-and-white spangled wings and a ...

In the world of birds, where fancy can be as fleeting as flight, the color of the bird apparently has a profound effect on more than just its image. A new study of barn swallows reveals it also ...

Quick Take Vulturine guinea fowl’s blue and white plumage comes from feather structure, not pigments, creating vivid, long-distance visual signals. Bright colors and high-contrast patterns help ...

Where do birds get their red feathers from? According to a new article, the red carotenoids that give the common crossbill its red coloration are produced in the liver, not the skin, as previously ...

A powerful X-ray machine, that shines a light brighter than the sun, has helped science detectives determine the color of a 150-million-year-old feather that once belonged to an archaeopteryx, an ...

Another week, another colorful feathered dinosaur. Hot on the heels of a recent report identifying pigments in fossilized dino feathers and filaments (SN Online: 1/27/10), a different team of ...