A study finds that there is a 50 percent chance that the common ancestor of birds and dinosaurs had bright colors on its skin, beaks and scales, but 0 percent chance that it had bright colors on its feathers or claws.

There’s a good chance that extinct dinosaurs rocked pops of color on similar body parts and may have flashed their colors to entice mates, just as birds do today, according to a study led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.

«Living birds use an array of pigments and can be very colorful on their beaks, legs, and around their eyes,» said Sarah Davis, a doctoral candidate at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences who led the study. «We could expect that extinct dinosaurs expressed the same colors.»

The research was published in the journal Evolution on Dec. 6.

The takeaway on potential dinosaur color schemes comes from broader findings about skin and tissue color in the common ancestor of living birds and extinct dinosaurs, an ancient archosaur that lived near the beginning of the Triassic period. By analyzing whether bright body color was present in living dinosaur relatives — including turtles, crocodiles and over 4,000 bird species — the researchers determined that the common ancestor had a 50% chance of having bright colors in the soft tissues of its body.

The bright colors examined in the study typically come from carotenoids — a class of colorful red, orange and yellow pigments that birds extract from their food. Carotenoids do not fossilize as well as brown and black pigments, which means scientists must study color in living animals to look for clues about color expression in their extinct ancestors.

Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Texas at Austin. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.