Le Livre d'Argent

Structured Success structuredsucc@mastodon.social

Small talk in a neurotypical world: "Hi, how are you?" "Good, and you?" "Good"

Small talk in an autistic world: "Hey~ Did you know that many dinosaurs had feathers!? Look at this cute little guy!!"

Artistic recreation of sinosauropteryx, a small dinosaur with brownish red feathers down it's back and alternating bands of white and brown feathers down it's tail. Photo credit: Julius T Csotonyi/Science Photo Library

Elzen elzen
@structuredsucc @adelinej One of the few fossils of sinosauropteryx we found was so well preserved that not only the feathers were visible on it, but we were also able to see the colours! That's how we know that the tail was racoon-like as shown on the picture! ^^
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Structured Success structuredsucc@mastodon.social

@elzen

It's so neat! Not only because it means that we had cute fuzzy little guys running around, but also that we have the ability to even tell that in the first place.

The complexity of coloration and pattern and even function of feathers must have been incredible.

D. G. Marshall davidtheeviloverlord@mastodon.social

@structuredsucc @elzen

I remember reading so many "Well, we'll never know what colour dinosaurs were." comments over the years.

Maybe 20 years ago, IIRC, a palaeontology student compared the structure of various dinosaur feather fossils to the structure of modern bird feathers. There was a correlation between structure and colour.