Fossilized skin from a juvenile Diplodocus discovered at Montana's Mother's Day Quarry preserved melanosomes revealing that its scales had conspicuous patterns rather than being uniformly gray or brown.
Sources
- The Top Ten Dinosaur Discoveries of 2025, From Preserved Blood ... (smithsonianmag.com)
- https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/12/12/251232/364075/Fossilized-melanosomes-reveal-colour-patterning-of (royalsocietypublishing.org)
- https://blog.everythingdinosaur.com/blog/_archives/2025/12/10/the-first-evidence-of-colour-patterning-in-sauropod-dinosaur-skin.html (blog.everythingdinosaur.com)
- https://mscpalaeo.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2025/12/10/first-report-of-melanosomes-in-sauropod-dinosaurs/ (mscpalaeo.blogs.bristol.ac.uk)
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