Thanks to thousands of fossil discoveries, scientists know a great deal about the creatures that inhabited our world millions of years ago. But one thing still vexes them: Just what did these animals look like? Scientists may finally get a chance to color-in this ancient world, thanks to new techniques that are revealing pigments in fossilized feathers and other soft tissues.
Join us on this page for a live chat at 3 p.m. EDT on Thursday, 7 July, to learn about the latest insights into what ancient birds, fish, and dinosaurs really looked like—and how their appearance may have affected their behavior and evolution. You can leave your questions in the comment box below before the chat starts.
Dr Phil Manning is head of the Palaeontology Research Group in the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences (SEAES) at the University of Manchester and is a Research Fellow at the Manchester Museum (University of Manchester). He believes that classic approaches in palaeontology are unable to resolve many key biological questions about extinct vertebrates and instead prefers cutting edge approaches, which provided significant advances across the whole subject, generating high-profile international interest.
Roy A. Wogelius
Dr Roy A. Wogelius is a reader in Geochemical Spectroscopy at the University of Manchester. His main scientific interest lies in understanding the chemical processes that control aqueous fluid-rock interactions in the earth's near surface environment.