Caudipteryx zoui

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Time: Early Cretaceous (~125 million years ago)

Region: Liaoning Province, China

Formation: Yixian Formation

Coloration Data

Analysis of fossilized feathers across several body regions indicates a predominantly dark (black or dark grey) overall coloration. In contrast, the tail plumage displays distinct alternating dark and light transverse bands, pointing to a high-contrast banded tail pattern that the animal likely utilized for visual signaling.

Method: Scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

Publications

• Quanguo Li, Julia A. Clarke, Ke-Qin Gao, Chang-Fu Zhou, Qingjin Meng, Daliang Li, Liliana D’Alba & Matthew D. Shawkey (2014)
  An article on the relationship between the shape of melanosomes and coloration in a large number of fossil species from various groups.
• Arindam Roy, Michael Pittman, Evan T. Saitta, Thomas G. Kaye, Xing Xu (2020)
  An overview article on the paleo‑coloration of amniotes.
• Jakob Vinther (2015)
  An overview of methods for reconstructing paleo‑coloration.

Documents and files

• Roy_et_al_2020.pdf (PDF)
  Review article on amniote paleocolor in Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.
• Vinther_2015.pdf (PDF)
  Review article on fossil color reconstruction.

Reconstructions

Fossils

Size comparison