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Morphological and Geochemical Evidence of Eumelanin Preservation in the Feathers of the Early Cretaceous Bird, Gansus yumenensis
Recent studies have shown evidence for the preservation of colour in fossilized soft tissues by imaging melanosomes, melanin pigment containing organelles. This study combines geochemical analyses with morphological observations to investigate the preservation of melanosomes and melanin within feath...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2011
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192724/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22022404 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0025494 |
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author | Barden, Holly E. Wogelius, Roy A. Li, Daqing Manning, Phillip L. Edwards, Nicholas P. van Dongen, Bart E. |
author_facet | Barden, Holly E. Wogelius, Roy A. Li, Daqing Manning, Phillip L. Edwards, Nicholas P. van Dongen, Bart E. |
author_sort | Barden, Holly E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Recent studies have shown evidence for the preservation of colour in fossilized soft tissues by imaging melanosomes, melanin pigment containing organelles. This study combines geochemical analyses with morphological observations to investigate the preservation of melanosomes and melanin within feathers of the Early Cretaceous bird, Gansus yumenensis. Scanning electron microscopy reveals structures concordant with those previously identified as eumelanosomes within visually dark areas of the feathers but not in lighter areas or sedimentary matrices. Fourier transform infrared analyses show different spectra for the feathers and their matrices; melanic functional groups appear in the feather including carboxylic acid and ketone groups that are not seen in the matrix. When mapped, the carboxylic acid group absorption faithfully replicates the visually dark areas of the feathers. Electron Paramagnetic Resonance spectroscopy of one specimen demonstrates the presence of organic signals but proved too insensitive to resolve melanin. Pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry shows a similar distribution of aliphatic material within both feathers that are different from those of their respective matrices. In combination, these techniques strongly suggest that not only do the feathers contain endogenous organic material, but that both geochemical and morphological evidence supports the preservation of original eumelanic pigment residue. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3192724 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2011 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-31927242011-10-21 Morphological and Geochemical Evidence of Eumelanin Preservation in the Feathers of the Early Cretaceous Bird, Gansus yumenensis Barden, Holly E. Wogelius, Roy A. Li, Daqing Manning, Phillip L. Edwards, Nicholas P. van Dongen, Bart E. PLoS One Research Article Recent studies have shown evidence for the preservation of colour in fossilized soft tissues by imaging melanosomes, melanin pigment containing organelles. This study combines geochemical analyses with morphological observations to investigate the preservation of melanosomes and melanin within feathers of the Early Cretaceous bird, Gansus yumenensis. Scanning electron microscopy reveals structures concordant with those previously identified as eumelanosomes within visually dark areas of the feathers but not in lighter areas or sedimentary matrices. Fourier transform infrared analyses show different spectra for the feathers and their matrices; melanic functional groups appear in the feather including carboxylic acid and ketone groups that are not seen in the matrix. When mapped, the carboxylic acid group absorption faithfully replicates the visually dark areas of the feathers. Electron Paramagnetic Resonance spectroscopy of one specimen demonstrates the presence of organic signals but proved too insensitive to resolve melanin. Pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry shows a similar distribution of aliphatic material within both feathers that are different from those of their respective matrices. In combination, these techniques strongly suggest that not only do the feathers contain endogenous organic material, but that both geochemical and morphological evidence supports the preservation of original eumelanic pigment residue. Public Library of Science 2011-10-13 /pmc/articles/PMC3192724/ /pubmed/22022404 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0025494 Text en Barden et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Barden, Holly E. Wogelius, Roy A. Li, Daqing Manning, Phillip L. Edwards, Nicholas P. van Dongen, Bart E. Morphological and Geochemical Evidence of Eumelanin Preservation in the Feathers of the Early Cretaceous Bird, Gansus yumenensis |
title | Morphological and Geochemical Evidence of Eumelanin Preservation in the Feathers of the Early Cretaceous Bird, Gansus yumenensis
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title_full | Morphological and Geochemical Evidence of Eumelanin Preservation in the Feathers of the Early Cretaceous Bird, Gansus yumenensis
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title_fullStr | Morphological and Geochemical Evidence of Eumelanin Preservation in the Feathers of the Early Cretaceous Bird, Gansus yumenensis
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title_full_unstemmed | Morphological and Geochemical Evidence of Eumelanin Preservation in the Feathers of the Early Cretaceous Bird, Gansus yumenensis
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title_short | Morphological and Geochemical Evidence of Eumelanin Preservation in the Feathers of the Early Cretaceous Bird, Gansus yumenensis
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title_sort | morphological and geochemical evidence of eumelanin preservation in the feathers of the early cretaceous bird, gansus yumenensis |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3192724/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22022404 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0025494 |
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