Melanosomes are organelles that produce and store melanin, a widespread biological
pigment with a unique suite of properties including high refractive index, semiconducting …

The melanin pigments eumelanin (EM) and pheomelanin (PM), which are dark brown to
black and yellow to reddish-brown, respectively, are widely found among vertebrates. They …

Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to achieve true flapping flight, but in the absence of
living representatives, many questions concerning their biology and lifestyle remain …

Fossil feathers, hairs and eyes are regularly preserved as carbonized traces comprised of
masses of micrometre-sized bodies that are spherical, oblate or elongate in shape. For a …

Colour, derived primarily from melanin and/or carotenoid pigments, is integral to many
aspects of behaviour in living vertebrates, including social signalling, sexual display and …

Microbodies associated with feathers of both nonavian dinosaurs and early birds were first
identified as bacteria but have been reinterpreted as melanosomes. Whereas melanosomes …

Fossil feathers often preserve evidence of melanosomes—micrometre-scale melanin-
bearing organelles that have been used to infer original colours and patterns of the plumage …

Fossil melanin granules (melanosomes) are an important resource for inferring the
evolutionary history of colour and its functions in animals. The taphonomy of melanin and …

Microbodies associated with fossil feathers, originally attributed to microbial biofilm, have
been reinterpreted as melanosomes: pigment-containing, eukaryotic organelles. This …

Recent discoveries of nonintegumentary melanosomes in extant and fossil amphibians offer
potential insights into the physiological functions of melanin not directly related to color …