2014
DOI: 10.1038/nature12899
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Skin pigmentation provides evidence of convergent melanism in extinct marine reptiles

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 abilit… Show more

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Cited by 118 publications
(154 citation statements)
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“…Our analysis indicates that in addition to evidence of colour patterning 6 , ecology 7 and thermoregulation 8 , fossil melanosomes can also carry a phylogenetic signal.…”
mentioning
confidence: 72%
“…Our analysis indicates that in addition to evidence of colour patterning 6 , ecology 7 and thermoregulation 8 , fossil melanosomes can also carry a phylogenetic signal.…”
mentioning
confidence: 72%
“…However, studies reporting remnant melanosomes have been met with controversy, and an alternative hypothesis has been put forth favouring a more conservative interpretation of the fossil microbodies as microbes colonizing the degrading tissues prior to burial [12,58]. Such criticism has sparked intense debate (see Edwards et al [11] for review), that is further aggravated by the dearth of unequivocal molecular indicators for ancient melanic pigments, which thus far have only been recorded from cephalopod ink sacs [59,60], a fish 'eye spot' [61] and marine reptile integuments [56]. Indeed, most occurrences of fossil melanosomes reported so far (particularly in feathers) are based entirely on morphology, packing and distribution (e.g.…”
Section: Melanin and Melanosomes In The Fossil Recordmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…fig. 1]), only eumelanin has so far been confidently identified in fossil melanosomes [56,61]. This suggests that the fully melanized stage IV melanosomes have the greatest capacity for preservation given their internal architecture of densely aggregated melanin granules [56,61].…”
Section: Melanin and Melanosomes In The Fossil Recordmentioning
confidence: 99%
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