Where are all the accurately colorful dinosaur toys?!

[Hermes888]

Alright, so I've been thinking.
In 2010, the first accurate non-avian dinosaur coloration was determined with Sinosauropteryx. Since then, other dinosaurs, like Microraptor and Anchiornis, have had their colors determined.
It's 2014 now, and I still haven't seen any figures of these creatures with the accurate colors. What's going on? Why isn't a dinosaur like Anchiornis, with its full coloration determined, getting any kind of representation?

I'd love to see these guys in toy form, from a "Backyard Birds" style Toob to a series kind of like the Audubon Birds plush toys.

[tyrantqueen]

We'll probably see them eventually. The Takara Tomy Anchiornis is appropriately coloured.

[Dan]

If we assume this technique withstands years of scientific review, some of these might pop up as figures eventually. Unfortunately, feathered theropods don't receive a lot of attention from big manufacturers, making it difficult to say whether they would be interested in "accurate" color reconstruction.

There was a Takara Anchiornis figure made with these colors, for the 2011 Dino Expo. Pretty rare though, of course. Boki's photo is below:



Edit: Nevermind, TQ beat me to it.

[Gwangi]

There was a paper recently released that claims the fossil melanosomes are in reality just bacteria. I'm surprised no one posted it here yet.

http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/tp-feathercolor/

[tyrantqueen]

There was a paper recently released that claims the fossil melanosomes are in reality just bacteria. I'm surprised no one posted it here yet.

http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/tp-feathercolor/

What are your thoughts on this hypothesis?

[SBell]

Assuming the techniques hold true, they also determined the colours of Archaeopteryx. It is apparently a magpie-like colouring http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/130614-dinosaur-xray-bird-color-feather-archaeopteryx/

And then Papo goes an makes a weird bald-headed brown one. So your answer is pretty much that most of the painting artists don't read, or don't care, about the new science in favour of using whatever they want.

[krentz]

  The technique always seems to come up with dark colored creatures.  I believe the current thought is the melansomes deteriorate during fossilization and look like the capsule shaped ones that represent black or dark colors.  SOmething like that.  Its certainly not as solid as it was years ago.  Never trust the press release.

[brandem]

Well the analysis of these fossilized melanosomes is a fairly new approach, and we don't know much yet about how melanomas fossilize so isn't it kinda hard to be certain at this point? So far of the four species that I'm aware have been examined they have all had colors that either fall on the gray scale or are reddish and that seems odd for four disparate species,

And krentz beat me to it but ill let the comment stand

[Gwangi]

There was a paper recently released that claims the fossil melanosomes are in reality just bacteria. I'm surprised no one posted it here yet.

http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/tp-feathercolor/

What are your thoughts on this hypothesis?

Being able to know the color of extinct animals seems too good to be true and keeping that in mind I've always been a bit on the skeptical side of this debate. The fact that so many of these animals appear to be dark colored like Krentz pointed out is suspicious to me. Archeopteryx-black, Anchiornis-black, Microraptor-black. I have a hard time buying into it and have been suspecting a study would come out explaining these melanosomes as something else.

[Megalosaurus]

There was a paper recently released that claims the fossil melanosomes are in reality just bacteria. I'm surprised no one posted it here yet.
http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/tp-feathercolor/

What are your thoughts on this hypothesis?

Being able to know the color of extinct animals seems too good to be true and keeping that in mind I've always been a bit on the skeptical side of this debate. The fact that so many of these animals appear to be dark colored like Krentz pointed out is suspicious to me. Archeopteryx-black, Anchiornis-black, Microraptor-black. I have a hard time buying into it and have been suspecting a study would come out explaining these melanosomes as something else.

You forgot to mention that also "ichthyosaurs are black".
I'm with you Gwangi & Krentz. What boring will be to have black toys & models everywhere.
Just look at modern day reptiles & birds, both are colourful, and yes, they have some all-black species.
When they say that Archaopterix was black, I just laught inside me: "Oh black again" 
Sure something is wrong with that studies.

[Bokisaurus]

It will be cool if more companies add interesting and bold colors to their figures. The braves so far, as far as using colors, is CollectA and Kaiyodo ( not really a toy).
Maybe someday

[Yutyrannus]

There was a paper recently released that claims the fossil melanosomes are in reality just bacteria. I'm surprised no one posted it here yet.
http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/tp-feathercolor/

What are your thoughts on this hypothesis?

Being able to know the color of extinct animals seems too good to be true and keeping that in mind I've always been a bit on the skeptical side of this debate. The fact that so many of these animals appear to be dark colored like Krentz pointed out is suspicious to me. Archeopteryx-black, Anchiornis-black, Microraptor-black. I have a hard time buying into it and have been suspecting a study would come out explaining these melanosomes as something else.

You forgot to mention that also "ichthyosaurs are black".
I'm with you Gwangi & Krentz. What boring will be to have black toys & models everywhere.
Just look at modern day reptiles & birds, both are colourful, and yes, they have some all-black species.
When they say that Archaopterix was black, I just laught inside me: "Oh black again" 
Sure something is wrong with that studies.

Actually, it is only known that Archaeopteryx primaries were black. Also, one ichthyosaur is known to be black that doesn't mean all of them are.

[Gwangi]

There was a paper recently released that claims the fossil melanosomes are in reality just bacteria. I'm surprised no one posted it here yet.
http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/tp-feathercolor/

What are your thoughts on this hypothesis?

Being able to know the color of extinct animals seems too good to be true and keeping that in mind I've always been a bit on the skeptical side of this debate. The fact that so many of these animals appear to be dark colored like Krentz pointed out is suspicious to me. Archeopteryx-black, Anchiornis-black, Microraptor-black. I have a hard time buying into it and have been suspecting a study would come out explaining these melanosomes as something else.

You forgot to mention that also "ichthyosaurs are black".
I'm with you Gwangi & Krentz. What boring will be to have black toys & models everywhere.
Just look at modern day reptiles & birds, both are colourful, and yes, they have some all-black species.

That's right, apparently a lot of marine animals were black or dark in general back then. It's at the point where if I see a story about the color of an extinct animal I just assume it was black.

When they say that Archaopterix was black, I just laught inside me: "Oh black again" 

Yup! My thoughts exactly.

[tyrantqueen]

You forgot Black Beauty was also black *is shot*

I think I also favour the skeptical side as well. More investigation and testing is needed before I would trust the idea one hundred percent. Other possible explanations should be explored as well.

I have to admit, I like the colours for Anchiornis and Sinosauropteryx. Sino reminds me of a red panda.

[Hermes888]

I have to admit, I like the colours for Anchiornis and Sinosauropteryx. Sino reminds me of a red panda.

See, I never really questioned these because the colors just made sense.

Even if it turns out the color can't be determined from fossils, this pattern wouldn't be wrong.

[Dinoguy2]

I have to admit, I like the colours for Anchiornis and Sinosauropteryx. Sino reminds me of a red panda.

See, I never really questioned these because the colors just made sense.

Even if it turns out the color can't be determined from fossils, this pattern wouldn't be wrong.

At least the patterning, if not the actual coloration, on some of these seems pretty solid. Especially when you've got fossils like this where you can see the apparent pattern with the naked eye. Some specimens of Caudipteryx were reported with tightly packed color banding on the tail feathers as far back as 2000. The Carnegie Caudipteryx has banded tail feathers but not as many small tight bands as the fossil shows.


This Anxhiornis specimen has obvious dark covert tips exactly where predated by the color studies, which used specimens were the pattern wasn't obvious to the naked eye that way. Seems like pretty good independent confirmation that these are melanosomes, though not necessarily that we can match melanosome shape with actual color.

Confuciusornis is another example--chemical analysis suggests light colored wings, dark body feathers, and light tail feathers with dark tips, a pattern which is apparent to the naked eye in most specimens. But asaid from dark/light we don't know what the life coloration was. If it turns out we can use melanosome to predict dark/light patterns but not true color, then we'll have a middle ground - we'll be able to see true to life dinosaurs, but only in black and white.

[Iguanocolossus]

Well, some of the Safari's and Papo's have very nice color jobs, but I agree-we need them to get all Luis Rey on the next figures!