Artists can at present be able to paint dinosaurs and ancient birds and mammals in their accurate colors, thanks to the discovery of pigment residues in fossilized feathers.

In current years, paleontologists have found fossil feathers in about 50 rock formations pegged to dates ranging from the Jurassic era (from about 200 million to 150 million years ago) to the late Tertiary (from 65 million to about 2 million years back).

These feathers are conserved as residues of carbon that were formerly thought to be traces of feather-degrading bacteria.