Scientists decipher color of 'super cute'
bristly dinosaur
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[September 16, 2016]
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists guided by
small structures preserved in fossilized skin have deciphered the color
and camouflage pattern of a little dinosaur with a parrot-like beak and
bristles on its tail that roamed thick forests in China about 120
million years ago.
Psittacosaurus was mainly brown but with a paler underside of the tail
and belly, a pattern called countershading that may have helped the
5-foot-long (1.5-meter) bipedal plant-eater go unnoticed by hungry
predators, the scientists said on Thursday.
It also had a heavily pigmented face and hind legs that were striped on
the inside and reticulated and spotted on the outside.
The color pattern suggested Psittacosaurus (pronounced
sit-TAK-ah-sawr-us) lived in a forest environment with diffuse light
from a dense canopy of trees, the researchers said. They created a
life-sized, full-color, three-dimensional model based on their findings.
"Our model suggests it was super, super cute. I think they would have
made fantastic pets. They look a bit like E.T.," said molecular
paleobiologist Jakob Vinther of the University of Bristol in Britain,
referring to the friendly alien in the 1982 film "E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial."
Psittacosaurus, meaning "parrot lizard," is one of the most thoroughly
studied dinosaurs, with hundreds of individual fossils. It was roughly
the size of a Labrador retriever, and probably was a common meal for
Cretaceous Period predators like the 30-foot-long (9 meters) T. rex
cousin Yutyrannus.
"It was eaten by a lot of other animals," Vinther said, and must have
quickly evolved optimal color patterns for camouflage.
Psittacosaurus is the third dinosaur to have its color deduced using
fossilized organelles called melanosomes that synthesize and store the
pigment melanin in vertebrate animals and are present in hair, feathers
and skin. It also was the first time researchers were able to
hypothesize the environment a dinosaur inhabited based on its
coloration.
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An artist's illustration of Psittacosaurus, a little dinosaur with a
parrot-like beak and bristles on its tail that roamed thick forests
in China about 120 million years ago is shown in this image released
on September 15, 2016. Courtesy Jakob Vinther/University of Bristol
and Bob Nicholls/Handout via REUTERS
Psittacosaurus, an early member of the horned-dinosaur group that
includes the massive Triceratops, had a short face and a strong beak
to eat plants, and boasted bristly long filaments above the tail.
Countershading is a pattern that serves to conceal shadows on an
animal, making it appear more flat optically and less conspicuous,
Vinther said.
"It is everywhere. We see it in the sea, on land and in flying
birds," Vinther said. "Examples could be penguins, puffins,
dolphins, mackerel, deer, foxes, antelopes. You name it. It's
ubiquitous."
The research was published in the journal Current Biology.
(Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Bill Trott)
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