Top 10 Questions about dinosaurs
Question #9:What color were the dinosaurs?
Answer: No one knows. Animal's skin colors are produced by organic pigments which are not preserved in the process of fossilization.
The best guess about dinosaur coloration is to try to figure out how a particular dinosaur lived and use modern-day reptiles (and other animals) as a guide. For example, an animal that is heavily hunted may need camouflage to help it hide from predators. Or, it may be brightly colored, mimicking a poisonous species.
Basically, it is impossible to know what the dinosaurs' coloration was (using today's science). You can imagine that a dinosaur blended into its environment, or its coloration was part the body's system to help keep it cool or warm, whatever the case, we don't think there was ever a checkerboard 'saur (but we're not ruling it out)!
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