Blacklights help spot preserved dinosaur feathers

Helmut Tischlinger is the man shaping what your children will think dinosaurs looked like. Most of you probably know that the illustrations of dinosaurs we grew up with were created through a process that includes as much speculation as science. Fossils, obviously, couldn't tell us what color T. Rex was, or whether the skin of a velociraptor felt like a lizard's—as is popularly portrayed. Tischlinger is at the forefront of efforts to improve our understanding of what dinosaurs looked like on the outside—and inside—using UV light to pick out the ephemeral remains of soft tissues. His photos—created using hand-made lens filters—are regarded as some of the best work out there.

This technique is a big part of why scientists now draw creatures like the microraptor with feathers, instead of leathery skin or scales. That's one of Tischlinger's photos of a microraptor fossil at the top of this page. The gray arrows point to feathers that show up under a blacklight.

The Discovery Channel has a new, short video that really shows off the massive difference between what the human eye can see by looking at fossil under natural light, compared to what is visible when you turn on the UV. It's a little mind-blowing.

There's lots being written about this technique, and Helmut Tischlinger, especially early in 2010, when he published a paper on that microraptor. A couple of things you might want to check out:

• Helmut Tischlinger: The King of UV—on the blog Archosaur Musings, written by palaeontologist Dave Hone.
• The 2010 peer-reviewed article in PLoS One, written by Hone and Tischlinger, that details the microraptor fossil. The photo came from this paper. You can read the whole thing for free.

• Smithsonian story about that peer-reviewed paper, and why it's important.

• A 2009 peer-reviewed paper (also free to read) on the UV analysis of soft tissue in a pterosaur species

• Hell Bent for Feathers—Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs post that includes several more great links.

• [Mister44]

  You all realize that just because it glows orange under UV, that doesn’t mean it was actually orange. I think there is just one fossil where what is believed to be some of the pigmentation survived.

• [chenille]

  On the topic of new reconstructions, I’d also like to note something else I thought was exciting, where they were able to reconstruct the actual color patterns in a feathered dinosaur. The paper is here and Smithsonian has a summary here.

• [Hamsterdam]

  Ummmm…there is an arrow pointing to its…ummm…

• [godisafiction]

  Number 12:

  The naughty bits of a dinosaur.

• [Mister44]

  That’s cool. In Forensics they use a whole host of different wavelengths. ALS = Alternative Light Source. I hope they are using all that are available to them as well.

  PS – it is fun too find rocks that fluoresce. I only have a few. I have some coal with a bit of something in there. Some of my amber fluoresce. And I have several minerals from old ‘kits’, and the old glue glows.

  • [Maggie Koerth-Baker]

    Agreed. The video reminded me a lot of the fluorescing rocks room at KU’s Dyche Museum.

• [Calimecita]

  I love these new discoveries, but I especially love how they show us that there’s so much more to discover yet :-)

  And I disagree that feathers make these incredible animals less impressive – what about the “terror birds”, then?

• [vamidus]

  Off-topic, but funny: Ha ha ha ha ha. That’s a f***ed up name to be namin’ your kid! Helmet! See, ’cause in English, a helmet would be like, you know, like something you would wear on your head, you know? You a… a helmet! Ha ha ha! In English, that would be like callin’ your kid, uh, “Lampshade” or some sh*t like that: ‘Hey, Lampshade! Come here and clean up your room!’ Ha ha ha ha ha!

• [Brainspore]

  I consider myself pro-science and all, but if it turns out that T-rex actually looked like a big chicken then I’m not sure that’s something I really want to know.

  • [gwailo_joe]

    Yes. . .I have to agree. A velociraptor with a robin’s red breast or oriole orange just isn’t. . .

    I guess I’m old school. Or just old. Bring out the truth by all means, yet somehow. . .

    It bums me out a little. Childhood imaginings denied or something like that.

    I prefer my dinosaurs naked thank you very much.

    • [kc0bbq]

      I just spent an afternoon at the Science Museum of Minnesota. The table with demonstration stuff that the staff palentologist sits at had toy dinosaurs to go with various bones. They all had feather crests and crap that doesn’t belong on dinosaurs.

      Way to crap all over my childhood, science museum. :(

      At least they haven’t glued feathers on the fantastic Triceratops they have.

      If science decides that mammals had feathers and glyptodons get turned into squashed turtle-chickens I will have a breakdown.

  • [Anonymous]

    T-rex still had dagger-shaped teeth and stereoscopic vision. Covering it in a layer of bright down won’t make it dorky.

• [Anonymous]

  Get high, turn on the blacklight, put on some Pink Fliyd and look at fossils, man.

• [Nadreck]

  I believe that the dinosaurs are coloured the way they usually are is because it’s thought that they’d blend in with their surroundings. Hence since, before the green plants took over, most plants were egg-plant purple back then, they clearly looked like Barney the Dinosaur.

• [Mister44]

  Just finished the video. Good gawd – can someone get them something better than a 30 yr old pentax? I assume it isn’t actually a film camera.

  At any rate – they have a whole host of filter kits in forensics – I wonder if this guy knows about them or find them useful.

  http://www.crime-scene.com/store/A-FK67AH.shtml

• [Cruxx]

  I need a high res version of that image w. arrows and all, stat!

  I am in love.

• [Goyo Marquez]

  Well…that was very underwhelming. If that video really shows off the massive difference you can see under uv light then there’s not much to this.

• [hammertime]

  What? Jesus ponies might have had feathers?!

  Great, now they will have to reprint all those school text books in Kansas.

• [Amelia_G]

  #zwei: Hell Mut = “bright courage”