Dinosaurs like Diplodocus may have been as colourful as birds
Skin fossils from a sauropod dinosaur examined with an electron microscope feature structures called melanosomes, which are similar to those that create the bright colours in birds' feathers
Life
Skin fossils from a sauropod dinosaur examined with an electron microscope feature structures called melanosomes, which are similar to those that create the bright colours in birds' feathers
10 December 2025
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Illustration of a sauropod, with inset showing pigmented structures in the skin as seen with an electron microscope
Tess Gallagher
Microscopic structures seen in the fossilised skin of a sauropod suggest that these giant dinosaurs may have been as brightly coloured as some birds.
Tess Gallagher at the University of Bristol, UK, and her colleagues examined sauropod skin fossils thought to be around 145 million years old, collected in 2019 and 2022 from the Mother’s Day Quarry in Montana.
Although the fossils couldn’t be definitively identified, it is thought they were probably Diplodocus.
The researchers took tiny pieces off the four scales from the fossils using a scalpel, then studied them with a scanning electron microscope, allowing them to see details at a cellular level.
