Non-integumentary melanosomes can bias reconstructions of the colours of fossil vertebrates

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Date
2018
Authors
McNamara, Maria E.
Kaye, Jonathan S.
Benton, Michael J.
Orr, Patrick J.
Rossi, Valentina
Ito, Shosuke
Wakamatsu, Kazumasa
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Nature Publishing Group
Published Version
10.1038/s41467-018-05148-x
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Abstract
The soft tissues of many fossil vertebrates preserve evidence of melanosomes-micron-scale organelles that inform on integumentary coloration and communication strategies. In extant vertebrates, however, melanosomes also occur in internal tissues. Hence, fossil melanosomes may not derive solely from the integument and its appendages. Here, by analyzing extant and fossil frogs, we show that non-integumentary melanosomes have high fossilization potential, vastly outnumber those from the skin, and potentially dominate the melanosome films preserved in some fossil vertebrates. Our decay experiments show that non-integumentary melanosomes usually remain in situ provided that carcasses are undisturbed. Micron-scale study of fossils, however, demonstrates that non-integumentary melanosomes can redistribute through parts of the body if carcasses are disturbed by currents. Collectively, these data indicate that fossil melanosomes do not always relate to integumentary coloration. Integumentary and non-integumentary melanosomes can be discriminated using melanosome geometry and distribution. This is essential to accurate reconstructions of the integumentary colours of fossil vertebrates.
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Yixian formation , Black , Pheomelanin , Taphonomy , Miocene , Libros , China , Spain , Fossilization , Preservation
Citation
McNamara, M. E., Kaye, J. S., Benton, M. J., Orr, P. J., Rossi, V., Ito, S. and Wakamatsu, K. (2018) 'Non-integumentary melanosomes can bias reconstructions of the colours of fossil vertebrates', Nature Communications, 9(1), 2878 (9pp). doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-05148-x
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http://hdl.handle.net/10468/6662
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Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences - Journal Articles
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© 2018, the Author(s). Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.