If you ever saw this bird, you might think it was a cross between a grackle and a scissor-tailed flycatcher because of its iridescent blue-black color and long, thin tail feathers.

But it’s not a bird.  This is a drawing of a Microraptor, a pigeon-sized dinosaur that lived 130 million years ago.  We know what it looked like thanks to extensive research published in yesterday’s issue of the journal Science, and this image by Mick Ellison of AMNH.

The research was a collaboration of American and Chinese scientists who examined Microraptor’s fossilized feathers at the microscopic level. 

The iridescence breakthrough has an Ohio connection.  Dr. Matt Shawkey, a co-author of the study and associate professor of biology at the University of Akron, discovered that in the commonly iridescent feathers of modern birds, arrays of pigment-bearing organelles called melanosomes were uniquely narrow.  These same shapes were found in Microraptor melanosomes.

Want to learn more about this dinosaur?  The American Museum of Natural History will have a live video chat today (Friday, March 9) at 12:30pm to discuss this earliest record of iridescence.

For more information, pictures and videos visit this page on the American Museum of Natural History’s website.

(drawing of a Microraptor based on digital overlays of nine fossilized specimens, by AMNH/Mick Ellison. Image featured here on Science Daily)