ArticleNature2014
Skin pigmentation provides evidence of convergent melanism in extinct marine reptiles.
Article in Nature, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 51 papers.
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Who cites it
51 citing papers in PubMed, 156 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Palaeo-bioinspiration draws on the fossil record to advance innovation.Communications biology · 2025Review
- Taphonomic variation in vascular remains from Mesozoic non-avian dinosaurs.Scientific reports · 2025Article
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- Taphonomic experiments reveal authentic molecular signals for fossil melanins and verify preservation of phaeomelanin in fossils.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Biomimetic pheomelanin to unravel the electronic, molecular and supramolecular structure of the natural product.Chemical science · 2023Article
- Independent Evidence for the Preservation of Endogenous Bone Biochemistry in a Specimen ofBiology · 2023Article
- TRPM8 thermosensation in poikilotherms mediates both skin colour and locomotor performance responses to cold temperature.Communications biology · 2023Article
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- Gudgeon fish with and without genetically determined countershading coexist in heterogeneous littoral environments of an ancient lake.Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Chemical Evaluation of Eumelanin Maturation by ToF-SIMS and Alkaline Peroxide Oxidation HPLC Analysis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2020Article
- Structural colours in diverse Mesozoic insects.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Hierarchical biota-level and taxonomic controls on the chemistry of fossil melanosomes revealed using synchrotron X-ray fluorescence.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Identifying medullary bone in extinct avemetatarsalians: challenges, implications and perspectives.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Throughout the animal kingdom, adaptive colouration serves critical functions ranging from inconspicuous camouflage to ostentatious sexual display, and can provide important information about the environment and biology of a particular organism. The most ubiquitous and abundant pigment, melanin, also has a diverse range of non-visual roles, including thermoregulation in ectotherms. However, little is known about the functional evolution of this important biochrome through deep time, owing to our limited ability to unambiguously identify traces of it in the fossil record. Here we present direct chemical evidence of pigmentation in fossilized skin, from three distantly related marine reptiles: a leatherback turtle, a mosasaur and an ichthyosaur. We demonstrate that dark traces of soft tissue in these fossils are dominated by molecularly preserved eumelanin, in intimate association with fossilized melanosomes. In addition, we suggest that contrary to the countershading of many pelagic animals, at least some ichthyosaurs were uniformly dark-coloured in life. Our analyses expand current knowledge of pigmentation in fossil integument beyond that of feathers, allowing for the reconstruction of colour over much greater ranges of extinct taxa and anatomy. In turn, our results provide evidence of convergent melanism in three disparate lineages of secondarily aquatic tetrapods. Based on extant marine analogues, we propose that the benefits of thermoregulation and/or crypsis are likely to have contributed to this melanisation, with the former having implications for the ability of each group to exploit cold environments.
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