Fossilized skin from a juvenile Diplodocus discovered at Montana's Mother's Day Quarry preserved melanosomes revealing that its scales had conspicuous patterns rather than being uniformly gray or brown.
Notes on verification
Confirmed by peer-reviewed publication in Royal Society Open Science plus multiple independent science news/blog sources reporting on the same study. [cascade flags: aggregator_dropped_primary_exists | tier=silver indep_score=0.867 clusters=3 claim_tier=notable]
Sources
- The Top Ten Dinosaur Discoveries of 2025, From Preserved Blood ... (seed:science_and_space)
- https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/12/12/251232/364075/Fossilized-melanosomes-reveal-colour-patterning-of (corroboration)
- https://blog.everythingdinosaur.com/blog/_archives/2025/12/10/the-first-evidence-of-colour-patterning-in-sauropod-dinosaur-skin.html (corroboration)
- https://mscpalaeo.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2025/12/10/first-report-of-melanosomes-in-sauropod-dinosaurs/ (corroboration)