The early mammals living alongside the dinosaurs might have all had dark-coloured fur. Living a nocturnal lifestyle, the animals’ colours would have helped them blend into the night. Dark brown was in ...

This works in modern animals the same way it did for dinosaur ... Shawkey believes that fur color didn't diversify much until about 66 million years ago. After the fall of the dinosaurs, early ...

From helping them find mates to bettering their ability to camouflage, marks on animals and birds serve various purposes.

However, the evolution of mammalian fur color and patterns has long remained a mystery, according to the China University of Geosciences. The research team's goal is to unravel this mystery.

Read more Largest ever animal may have been Triassic ichthyosaur ... From this, the researchers developed a model that ...

The color of their fur has also given insights into how early mammals evolved and how they interacted with other species and their changing environment. The color of an animal’s fur is quite complex ...

Previous work has shown that shape corresponds to the colour of the animal's fur. Apart from building a clearer picture of those early mammals, knowing the colour is also a huge breakthrough ...