Signs of the color blue have been found in a fossil for the first time
Modern blue-colored birds and an ancient bird both have similar color-creating microstructures
STUDY IN BLUE This fossil of Eocoracias brachyptera, a bird that lived 48 million years ago, contains preserved melanosomes. The shape and size of those tiny pigment-containing structures, and the bird’s family tree, suggest that it had blue plumage.
Sven Traenkner/Senckenberg Research Institute and Nature Museum in Frankfurt