Reconstruction of the plumage color of  Anchiornis huxleyi.   Color plate by Michael A. Digiorgio, from Science.

The authors say that because it was a non-flying dinosaur, these striking feathers suggest that colouration (and hence signalling or camouflage) may have been as important as aerodynamics in the early evolution of feathers. Jerry points out that you had to have feathers first, so the first appearance of feathers must have had some other advantage.

However, without wishing to be cynical, maybe this is all a big yawn. Certainly, it will be tough to get such papers published it high ranking journals again (I can’t see Nature filling its pages with pretty reconstructions of feathered dinos), so unless they can work out what colour Stegosaurs were (they didn’t have feathers. We think), or make some similar striking novel insight it I reckon that’s it.

Indeed, depending on how complicated it is to carry out these analyses (and only a few fossils apparently retain the necessary melanosomes) there may even be a decline in this kind of work, because it couldn’t be published in the likes of Nature or Science, in that it would just be one more coloured dinosaur.

However, there is another point, raised by two posters, Bex and Finch, on my previous article. Both of them yawned, for different reasons. Are they right?

Bex: Are you sure this is a very relevant issue? I mean, yes, it may be interesting … the possibility to provide some (feeble) inferences on behaviour, maybe even metabolism. But maybe this is not so amazing. Maybe it is just … cool: arresting images, nice colours, and the old stuff about charming dinosaurs. “Nature” seems to love appealing news, they are more attractive that … “tedious science”! Maybe dinosaurs had blue tails, maybe Neanderthals had red hair. Science or gossip? Once more, this is interesting, but … so much interesting?

BBC page, includes video (probably not visible outside UK)

Adam Smith’s fantastic Plesiosaur site

Adam Smith podcast on is Nessie a Plesiosaur and other (more serious) things:

Mike Taylor, a PhD student from Portsmouth was rummaging around in the basement of the Natural History Museum – the way you do – when he came across a new species of sauropod dinosaur, now called Xenoposeidon. Or at least, one of its vertebrae.

Guardian summary; BBC summary.

Blog by Mike Taylor, including loads of material on sauropod vertebrae. One person’s nerdy obsession is another’s fascinatingly detailed account. You decide.

Our very own Jonathan Codd features in this BBC news page, describing his work on the bones involved in dino breathing. The paper this was based on has just been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society (open access).

Nature magazine article about a palaeontology project in Alaska, where they are blasting out hadrosaur bones from underneath the permafrost – a bit different from the normal image of people using paintbrushes under a baking desert sun… Mind you, they do end up with paintbrushes in the end.

You or your institution will need a subscription to see the page, but you can watch this video about the expedition for free.

YouTube video of the stage show. A bit disappointing, I felt, like watching a bad episode of Dr Who – the monsters are just people in suits. I was particularly disappointed by the stegosaur (about 1 minute in).

Our very own Dr Phil Manning strikes again. This time, he has identified the first footprint of T. rex. A team from BBC North-West was on hand! BBC News page; watch the programme here (may not work outside the UK).

Two studies of the biomechanics of biting in extinct animals. The first shows that the sabretooth tiger’s bite wasn’t as bad as its yawn, while the second shows that duck-billed dinosaurs could probably chomp their way through some pretty hard stuff.

Velociraptors were those aggressive, smart, hunting dinosaurs at the end of the first Jurassic Park movie. Spielberg got two things wrong – they were nowhere near as big as in the film (dramatic licence) and it now appears they may have had feathers on their fore-limbs. Or at least, there are bumps on their bones that the authors of this study identify as feather quill knobs, due to their homology with those seen on birds.

BBC summary; original Science article (I was able to access this from outside Uni).

Science podcast on ape/human cognition, feathered dinosaurs, saving tigers. Science podcast on cooperative breeding and the mystery of the Ivory-Billed woodpecker – is it extinct?