Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, , New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
Biol Lett. 2010 Feb 23;6(1):128-31. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0524. Epub 2009 Aug 26.
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.
对德国达姆施塔特附近著名的中始新世麦塞尔油页岩中的羽毛进行研究表明，这些羽毛是作为一系列已碳化的黑素体保存下来的，周围的β角蛋白已经降解。大多数羽毛都保存为排列整齐的棒状真黑素体。然而，在一些羽毛中，羽瓣的开放性羽枝远端部分的羽小枝被保存为一个紧密排列的黑素体的连续外部层，其中包含排列不整齐的黑素体。这种排列类似于在许多现生鸟类的黑色羽毛表面产生虹彩、结构色光泽的单一薄膜纳米结构。这是我们所知的化石羽毛中保存颜色产生纳米结构的首例证据，证实了在古代鸟类和其他恐龙中确定颜色差异的可能性。
