Molecular paleontologist Jasmina Wiemann and colleagues cracked the case in 2017. But paleontologists have developed ways to ascertain what colors those eggs would have been so many tens of millions of years ago. To our modern eyes, their colors were determined by the kind of sediment they were buried in and how minerals partially replaced the delicate eggshell. But, at a glance, most fossilized dinosaur eggs look drab.
That we have any dinosaur eggs at all to study is amazing. Most fossil dinosaur eggs came from this narrow window of time. If a nest's eggs were not eaten or otherwise destroyed, the baby dinosaurs themselves would break out of them upon hatching. Aside from requiring rapid and delicate burial, dinosaurs only spent a few months, at most, inside their eggs. Non-avian dinosaurs of the ancient past, paleontologists have found, had eggs that could be just as striking as those of modern birds.įossils of dinosaur eggs are very rare. But the story of dinosaur colors doesn't just stop with scales and feathers.
Recent research into the palette of dinosaurian plumage has made that abundantly clear. Credit: Jasmina Wiemannĭinosaurs have always been colorful creatures. Understanding how modern eggs get their colors allowed paleontologists to study dinosaur egg colors.
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