How Did Our Ancestors Survive?
How did our ancestors survive in the shadow of the dinosaurs? Paleontologists are learning more about dinosaurs now than in the past century. We’re even beginning to learn what color some dinosaurs were thanks to fossilized melanosomes or pigment cells. It turns out dinosaurs came in a variety of different colors, but very little research has been done on what the color of Mesozoic mammals would have looked like.
Now in a new study by scientists in the UK, China, and Belgium, we're beginning to learn more about our early mammalian ancestors during the Mesozoic. By analyzing the color patterns and melanosomes of 116 known present-day animals and applying that data to six Mesozoic mammals, scientists were able to find that these Mesozoic mammals were darkly colored. They didn't have any stripes or spots like many modern mammals do, and this helps support the idea that Mesozoic mammals were primarily nocturnal. They were coming out primarily at night while the large colorful dinosaurs were still asleep.
If you want to learn more about what our ancestors were doing during the time of the dinosaurs, come check us out at Tyrannostorus!