dinos and birds and random strange thoughts

[Cat]

Ok, when I am bored, my thoughts tend to wander to very strange thoughts.

So here is my musings for today. I saw a show the other day that was saying birds are the surviving decendants of dinosaurs. And watching my ducks, the way they move when hunting bugs - it doesn't seem to be that far of a stretch I guess - swap out the little wings of the chicks for little front legs and wall-ah.

However, any time I see dinos portrayed they have a grey, greenish, or brownish colored skin.

But I'm thinking they may have originally had red skin - or atleast red on the heads.

I mean, if birds did evolve from dinos - when they have bare skin showing through its usually red. Think of turkey buzzards and roosters and muscovy ducks. Very different types of birds but all have that same blazing red color on their heads.

What if it came from the dinos? Maybe our vision of them is completely wrong.

[Sparrk]

Oh geez, you too?

HAHA, my fiancee is convinced and will often rant that no way was a dinosaurs skin green.

[FatSpottedAppy]

Lol! Well I guess it makes sense.. I never thought about that before. :p

[Blue]

I was actually wondering about this last night. My friend and I were riding the horses at dusk and we pretended we were riding dinosaurs...HAHA! Complete with volcanoes erupting, meteor showers and...crossing an ocean? lol. There was a giant puddle in the arena...

Anyway, I've always wondered about the colors of dinosaurs. You're right, what if they were red? Or blue? Or pink? lol. Probably not the last two...it would be hard to hide from predators if you were bright pink or blue. lol.

Man...I wish I was a dinosaur. Without the extinction stuff though.

[WashingtonBay]

I think a lot of our suppositions on the details would be wrong. For all we know, the dinosaurs also had feathers. Or scales. Feathers and scales are closely related. :)

[JackieB]

Good point, Cat. I've heard dinosaur experts say the same thing - that dinosaurs may have been very colorful. And if you search around, you should be able to find artist renditions of multi-colored dinosaurs as well.

[Cat]

Anyway, I've always wondered about the colors of dinosaurs. You're right, what if they were red? Or blue? Or pink? lol. Probably not the last two...it would be hard to hide from predators if you were bright pink or blue. lol.


But that wouldn't matter if you were the predator, would it? Also there was a show on discovery a while back talking about the evolution of the eye. At least in humans and some primates - red was the last color that developed for us to see. So if they can't see it, then it is really hard for that color to stand out - it would be shades of grey.

[Pinky]

But that wouldn't matter if you were the predator, would it? Also there was a show on discovery a while back talking about the evolution of the eye. At least in humans and some primates - red was the last color that developed for us to see. So if they can't see it, then it is really hard for that color to stand out - it would be shades of grey.

If you're a predator and are bright orange I would assume it's pretty difficult to hide from your prey ;)

I think (could be wrong) that some dinos were found with muscule/tissue and some 'skin' fossilised and through analising the chemicals in the skin they could tell the colour of a certain type. :) I used to want to be a palientologist ;)

However, if I remember, the skin wasn't green. Maybe a yellowy grey...they were found in a desert area (and there is a rather long scientific word for this that I've just spent 3 minutes trying to spell xD)

[Blue]

But that wouldn't matter if you were the predator, would it? Also there was a show on discovery a while back talking about the evolution of the eye. At least in humans and some primates - red was the last color that developed for us to see. So if they can't see it, then it is really hard for that color to stand out - it would be shades of grey.
Cool! I never knew that!

[FredRock]

I've always assumed they were camouflaged. Of course we could be completely off, and all dinosaurs could have been pink with blue, green, and yellow spots. It's an interesting theory though, but then they say the closest thing to a velociraptor is the Emu, and they have black scales.