In the first part of this series, we went through bird colours formed by melanosomes and structural properties of their skin and feathers. These mechanisms produce blacks and greys, browns, iridescences, blues and purples. These are also the only colours that can be at the moment partially deciphered from well-preserved fossils.

However, that is not even close to the full rainbow of living birds, and unlikely was that for non-avian dinosaurs either. In this article, we’ll go through other mechanisms living birds use to produce colour, and speculate how likely each of them would be in ancient non-avian species. Continue reading →