这个具有4000万年历史的羽毛化石(如上图)有着彩虹色,就像在浮油和现代鸟类与昆虫中看到的一样。
据美国《科学》杂志在线新闻报道,彩虹色是一些根据视角来变化颜色的表面所具有的特征。科学家指出,这一效果是由保存在化石——发现于德国的Messel Shale——中的纳米结构所形成的。美国耶鲁大学的科学家利用电子显微镜对这些羽毛化石进行了分析,并发现了具有黑色素结构的光滑表层。这种表层使得羽毛能够随着不同的视角而散射出绿色、蓝色或紫铜色。研究人员日前在《生物学快报》网络版上报告了这一发现。(生物谷Bioon.com)
生物谷推荐原始出处:
Biology Letters August 26, 2009, doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0524
Structural coloration in a fossil feather
Jakob Vinther1, Derek E. G. Briggs1,3,*, Julia Clarke4, Gerald Mayr5 and Richard O. Prum2,3
1Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
2Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
3Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
4Department of Geological Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
5Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Investigation of feathers from the famous Middle Eocene Messel Oil Shale near Darmstadt, Germany shows that they are preserved as arrays of fossilized melanosomes, the surrounding beta-keratin having degraded. The majority of feathers are preserved as aligned rod-shaped eumelanosomes. In some, however, the barbules of the open pennaceous, distal portion of the feather vane are preserved as a continuous external layer of closely packed melanosomes enclosing loosely aligned melanosomes. This arrangement is similar to the single thin-film nanostructure that generates an iridescent, structurally coloured sheen on the surface of black feathers in many lineages of living birds. This is, to our knowledge, the first evidence of preservation of a colour-producing nanostructure in a fossil feather and confirms the potential for determining colour differences in ancient birds and other dinosaurs.