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      A guide to the field of palaeo colour: Melanin and other pigments can fossilise: Reconstructing colour patterns from ancient organisms can give new insights to ecology and behaviour.

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          Abstract

          Melanin, and other pigments have recently been shown to preserve over geologic time scales, and are found in several different organisms. This opens up the possibility of inferring colours and colour patterns ranging from invertebrates to feathered dinosaurs and mammals. An emerging discipline is palaeo colour: colour plays an important role in display and camouflage as well as in integumental strengthening and protection, which makes possible the hitherto difficult task of doing inferences about past ecologies, behaviours, and organismal appearance. Several studies and techniques have been presented in the last couple of years that have described ways to characterize pigment patterns. Here, I will review the available methods and the likely applications to understand past ecologies. A golden age of colourized dinosaurs and other animals is now dawning upon us, which may elucidate the nature of ancient predator prey interactions and display structures.

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          The Adaptive Significance of Coloration in Mammals

          Tim Caro (2005)
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            Four-winged dinosaurs from China.

            Although the dinosaurian hypothesis of bird origins is widely accepted, debate remains about how the ancestor of birds first learned to fly. Here we provide new evidence suggesting that basal dromaeosaurid dinosaurs were four-winged animals and probably could glide, representing an intermediate stage towards the active, flapping-flight stage. The new discovery conforms to the predictions of early hypotheses that proavians passed through a tetrapteryx stage.
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              The distribution and nature of colour vision among the mammals.

              1. An oft-cited view, derived principally from the writings of Gordon L. Walls, is that relatively few mammalian species have a capacity for colour vision. This review has evaluated that proposition in the light of recent research on colour vision and its mechanisms in mammals. 2. To yield colour vision a retina must contain two or more spectrally discrete types of photopigment. While this is a necessary condition, it is not a sufficient one. This means, in particular, that inferences about the presence of colour vision drawn from studies of photopigments, the precursors of photopigments, or from nervous system signals must be accepted with due caution. 3. Conjoint signals from rods and cones may be exploited by mammalian nervous systems to yield behavioural discriminations consistent with the formal definition of colour vision. Many mammalian retinas are relatively cone-poor, and thus there are abundant opportunities for such rod/cone interactions. Several instances were cited in which animals having (apparently) only one type of cone photopigment succeed at colour discriminations using such a mechanism. it is suggested that the exploitation of such a mechanism may not be uncommon among mammals. 4. Based on ideas drawn from natural history, Walls (1942) proposed that the receptors and photopigments necessary to support colour vision were lost during the nocturnal phase of mammalian history and then re-acquired during the subsequent mammalian radiations. Contemporary examination of photopigment genes along with the utilization of better techniques for identifying rods and cones suggest a different view, that the earliest mammals had retinas containing some cones and two types of cone photopigment. Thus the baseline mammalian colour vision is argued to be dichromacy. 5. A consideration of the broad range of mammalian niches and activity cycles suggests that many mammals are active during photic periods that would make a colour vision capacity potentially useful. 6. A systematic survey was presented that summarized the evidence for colour vision in mammals. Indications of the presence and nature of colour vision were drawn both from direct studies of colour vision and from studies of those retinal mechanisms that are most closely associated with the possession of colour vision. Information about colour vision can be adduced for species drawn from nine mammalian orders.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Bioessays
                BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology
                1521-1878
                0265-9247
                Jun 2015
                : 37
                : 6
                Affiliations
                [1 ] Schools of Earth Sciences and Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom.
                Article
                10.1002/bies.201500018
                25854512
                329cdc40-6108-4264-8e52-9e4d129fb52d
                © 2015 WILEY Periodicals, Inc.
                History

                camouflage,dinosaur,display,melanin,melanosome,pigment
                camouflage, dinosaur, display, melanin, melanosome, pigment

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