Paleoartist Emily Willoughby rendered this Deinonychus antirrhopus with its arms folded, instead of outstretched, as it's usually depicted.
Emily WilloughbyMarch 2, 2021
Dino Edition: How do we know what dinosaurs looked like?
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20 years ago, we pictured dinosaurs as green, scaly animals. But times have changed! Now, we know some dinosaurs had feathers. And who knows — maybe some even had stripes.
This episode looks at how we figure out what color dinosaurs might’ve been. We talk to Jingmai O’Connor, who studies fossil reptiles, about finding color pigment in fossils. And paleoartist Emily Willoughby talks to a “museum” about how her dino-depictions have changed over the years.
Our co-host, Elyana, also brought us this important question: If dinosaurs evolved from birds and birds don’t fart, did dinosaurs fart? Wha-wha-what!?! Look no further than this episode for an extensive investigation.
Remember to keep your ears open for the brand new Mystery Sound. And break out your kilns, because today’s Moment of Um answers this question: How do you make clay for pottery?
There’s so much dino-tastic information that we decided to make a second dinosaur episode. So if you haven’t had enough (and who has?), make sure to check out next week’s show about what dinosaurs might have sounded like.
Audio Transcript
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CHILD: You're listening to Brains On where we're serious about being curious.
CHILD: Brains On is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
[RADIO STATIONS CHANGING]
RADIO LISTENER: Ah, I can't find anything to listen to before the next episode of Brains On comes out. .
ALT POTATO RADIO DJ: That was Tater and the Tots with their latest banger, Fry Me A River.
[RADIO STATIONS CHANGING]
RADIO LISTENER: Nah, Alt Potato Radio isn't my thing. I keep telling everybody, Pickle Radio is where it's at.
RADIO ANNOUNCER: Time to dial. If you're caller 10, you and a friend are going to Skunk-A-Palooza. We'll have a winner right after we hear from our sponsor Limburger Cheese.
RADIO LISTENER: Ew. That station stinks.
[RADIO STATIONS CHANGING]
SLEEPY DJ: Are you bored? Us, too. And that's the way we like it. We're about to get into our 2-hour commercial-free set of recordings of a cardboard box.
[YAWNS]
Pretty boring. Oh yeah.
[RADIO STATIONS CHANGING]
RADIO LISTENER: No, that's going to put me right to sleep.
[RADIO STATIONS CHANGING]
RADIO ANNOUNCER: Tune in to Tall Things Considered, Saturdays at noon, followed by Wait, Wait, Don't Smell Me at 1:00. Coming up next, it's Dino Edition, the all-dinosaur broadcast. Special guest host on today's Dino Edition, Molly Bloom and Eliana from Brains On.
RADIO LISTENER: Yes, I love this show!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: This is Dino Edition from Brains On and American Public Media. I'm Molly Bloom in Minneapolis.
ELIANA: And I'm Eliana in New York City.
MOLLY BLOOM: Today on the show, what dinosaurs were actually like.
ELIANA: And how scientists had to figure that out.
MOLLY BLOOM: But first, a look at traffic with Sanden Totten.
[CARS HUMMING]
SANDEN TOTTEN: Molly, the traffic out here today is bonkers.
[CROW CAWING]
We've got living dinosaurs sitting on tree branches. They're finding worms to eat. They're flying every which way overhead.
[WINGS FLAPPING]
What's that you say? Living dinosaurs? Has Sanden eaten seven bags of cotton candy again?
[CROW CAWING]
Well, yes, I have, but I'm right about the living dinosaurs thing. You see, dinosaurs were a big and varied group of animals. We know about hundreds of different dinosaurs, but there were probably many, many, many more that we don't know about. A lot of what we know about them comes from fossils, which are basically bits of dinosaurs that wound up preserved in rock.
Many of these fossils are bones, but there were also fossilized dino poop, footprints, skin impressions, feathers, cake recipes. OK, not cake recipes, but the rest of that stuff. And by looking at those feathers and dinosaur bones, scientists came to the startling, amazing conclusion that some dinosaurs evolved into birds. Yes, birds.
That means that all birds evolved from the same group of meat eating dinosaurs that includes Tyrannosaurus Rex! So that's why these birds are, in fact, living dinosaurs. Oh, and one's coming this way. Oh, hello, little cutie. (BABY VOICE) You tiny wittle ancestor of the T-Rex. You couldn't possibly hurt me. Oh no, oh no--
Oh. [LAUGHS] I don't have any birdseed, sorry, or worms, or--
[CHICKENS CLUCKING]
Hey, hey, stop. Stop pecking at me. Ow, stop chasing me. Ah! I'm being chased by a living dinosaur! OK, got to run. Back to you, Molly. Thanks!
[FLURRY OF BIRDS]
MOLLY BLOOM: Well, thank you, Sanden, for that informative traffic report.
ELIANA: You're listening to Dino Edition.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ANNOUNCER: Questions for Dino Edition come from Brains On listeners, asking incredible questions for many years running, like--
LIAM: Hello, my name is Liam from Oakville, Ontario, Canada, and my question is, why do we assume dinosaurs are Earth tone colors? Because birds descend from dinosaurs and birds are very colorful.
ANNOUNCER: An answer to Liam's question will be heard in a minute. You can send your questions to Brains On at brainson.org/contact.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ELIANA: You're listening to Dino Edition. I'm Eliana.
MOLLY BLOOM: And I'm Molly. If you've ever been to a Natural History Museum, chances are you've seen a replica of a dinosaur skeleton. There it is all dug up and shiny, reassembled, and propped up on some metal poles. Pretty amazing, right?
ELIANA: But you know what's missing? Everything else. No skin, no feathers, no muscles, or eyelids.
MOLLY BLOOM: So how do scientists think about what was on the outside of dinosaurs?
ELIANA: Sometimes, fossils have clues, but other times, they don't.
MOLLY BLOOM: In those cases, scientists look at living animals to make educated guesses. We're looking for some of these real live animals to give us a call and tell us what that's like. Let's go to the phones.
ELIANA: Our first caller is an elephant. Hello.
ELEPHANT: (OVER THE PHONE) Hi, yes. I am an elephant. Scientists compare me to sauropod dinosaurs, you know, the big dinos with the super long necks and tails. They have four legs, eat plants? Yeah, scientists think sauropods might have been brownish like me because even though we're not very closely related, we live similar lives. We're big vegetarians. Plus, bright colors make it easier for other animals to eat us. So muted shades probably suit us best.
MOLLY BLOOM: Wow, great point from that elephant.
ELIANA: Thanks for calling in.
[ELEPHANT TRUMPETS]
MOLLY BLOOM: Up next, we have a crocodile.
CROCODILE: (OVER THE PHONE) Hi, yeah, can you hear me?
MOLLY BLOOM: Yes, Crocodile, you're on the line with Dino Edition.
CROCODILE: (OVER THE PHONE) OK, great, longtime listener, first time caller. So I just wanted to say me and the other crocodiles, we didn't choose to be these dark green or tan colors. We evolved this way over millions of years. Earth tones help us blend in, and you can get a lot more to eat if you blend in well. Also, dinosaurs and crocodiles actually go way back. We have a common ancestor that lived 250 million years ago. It gave rise to both dinosaurs and crocodiles. But that's another story.
ELIANA: Wow, OK. Let's take one more caller, a cardinal.
cardinal: (OVER THE PHONE) Hi, yes, I'm a huge fan of the show. Thanks for taking my call. Anyway, yeah, I'm a cardinal, you know, bright red, small beak. I want to say, yes, I am beautifully colored, but it's not all me. Like flamingos, my coloring comes from what I eat. See, the seeds I eat have chemicals called carotenoids that make my bright red coloring. So for example, meat eating dinosaurs, they wouldn't have been eating these kinds of chemicals because they couldn't have gotten bright red coloring the same way that I do.
ELIANA: Thank you. That was a Cardinal.
cardinal: (OVER THE PHONE) Oh, yeah, one more thing, scientists say that some dinosaurs had their own versions of bright coloring, colors that didn't depend on their diets.
MOLLY BLOOM: That is so interesting, and I think that's all the time we have--
CARDINAL: (OVER THE PHONE) Oh, and bright colors can help you attract mates! Scientists say that's what my bright red feathers do for me.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. Thanks for calling in. It's always so great to hear from our audience.
CARDINAL: (OVER THE PHONE) Oh, this is an--
[LINE CUTS OFF]
MOLLY BLOOM: Oops, looks like we--
[CLEARS THROAT]
--lost that call.
ELIANA: To sum up those insights, Earth tones might have helped dinosaurs blend in.
MOLLY BLOOM: But it's also true that for some dinosaurs bright colors could have helped them find mates.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
More on dino colors in a bit, but Eliana, we've just received a breaking update. Yes, our producers are telling me, it's time for the--
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHILD: (WHISPERS) Mystery sound.
MOLLY BLOOM: So we will need your guess. Are you ready, Eliana?
ELIANA: Yes, I am.
MOLLY BLOOM: Here it is.
[MYSTERY SOUND]
So, Eliana, do you have a guess?
ELIANA: Yeah, it sounded like some sort of machine sucking something up? It sounded like when they put mail in the tube, and they suck it up.
MOLLY BLOOM: Mm.
ELIANA: It like where they put it in the thing, and they suck it up. It sounded similar to that.
MOLLY BLOOM: It's like one of those pneumatic tubes.
ELIANA: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: Very good guess. We'll have an update on that in a bit. Stay with us.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ANNOUNCER: Special thanks to the idea of time travel. Going anywhere you want in the future or past would be fascinating, and Brains On is making an episode about it. So please send us where you'd want to travel in time. The future? The past? Pick any time you like and tell us why at brainson.org/contact. That's brainson.org/contact. And extra special thanks to listeners who have sent in their ideas, mystery sounds, and questions. Here's one more we'll be answering at the end of the show.
BRI: Hello, my name is Bri. I'm from Ottawa, Ontario, and my question is, how do you make clay for pottery?
ANNOUNCER: We'll also get an Honor Roll update of the listeners who have reached out at brainson.org/contact. That's brainson.org/contact.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ANNOUNCER: Questions for Dino Edition come from Brains On listeners, sending in great questions every day like--
ENOCH: My question is how did archeologists know how the dinosaurs look like?
ANNOUNCER: That question comes from Enoch. Learn more in just a moment.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: This is Dino Edition from Brains On and American Public Media. I'm Molly.
ELIANA: And I'm Eliana.
MOLLY BLOOM: So we know scientists can look to living animals for clues about what dinosaurs looked like.
ELIANA: But there are other clues that could be decoded from fossils. They could even tell us more about their color.
MOLLY BLOOM: Dino Edition reporter David Zha has the story.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DAVID ZHA: Humans have speculated for over a century about what dinosaurs may have looked like. Paintings from the 1800s depicted them as giant leathery lizards using colors like gray, brown, and dull green. But nowadays, new evidence has totally changed the way we think about dinosaurs.
Modern artists aren't afraid to draw dinosaurs in new ways with bright colors and feathered wings, purple, yellow, orange, lime green. Nothing is off limits anymore. So how do paleontologists figure out what colors dinosaurs actually were? I called Jingmai O'Connor to find out. She's an Associate Curator of Fossil Reptiles at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
JINGMAI O'CONNOR: So you have melanosome-based colorations. Basically, there's these pigment molecules inside skin that creates a set of colors.
DAVID ZHA: Melanosomes are molecules that determine how dark an animal's color is. By studying the melanosomes and pigment molecules of modern creatures, paleontologists are sometimes able to figure out what shades and colors extinct dinosaurs may have been.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JINGMAI O'CONNOR: We have studied what different shapes mean in terms of living animals. So we know that if it's like a round little meatball-shaped melanosome, then it's like a rusty red color. Or if it's a long, sausage-shaped melanosome, it means black. And if they're aligned in parallel to each other, maybe it means iridescent black. Then we can look at the melanosomes that are preserved in the fossil record and say, hey, that's the same as like little meatballs. OK, we have a red color, that kind of thing.
DAVID ZHA: This method has given paleontologists new insight into how certain dinos looked.
JINGMAI O'CONNOR: So we have studied, for example, this flying dinosaur microraptor. It's really cool animal. It has wings on its forelimbs, and also, its legs are also wings. It's very cool. And studies have shown that this animal was iridescent black.
DAVID ZHA: Iridescent means to shimmer or gleam in the light. So microraptor was black, but it would have appeared to change color if you looked at it from a different angle. But anyways, the color testing that Jingmai is describing, it does have its limits.
JINGMAI O'CONNOR: One hadrosaur has been sampled, and it seems that it was gray. But it was only one specimen, so we know that, at least, some hadrosaurs were gray. We only know that one part of the body was gray. We don't know what the whole body was because we only have part of the skin. So we don't know if all hadrosaurs were gray, but at least one hadrosaur had at least one part of its body that was gray.
DAVID ZHA: Even with new fossil evidence of preserved dinosaur colors, the amount paleontologists can know for sure is still limited. But limited evidence is still better than no evidence.
JINGMAI O'CONNOR: Most of the color studies that have been done for fossil animals are from feathered dinosaurs and Mesozoic birds.
DAVID ZHA: Oh, yes, dinosaurs with feathers. You might not see any feathered dinosaurs in movies like Jurassic Park, but that's science fiction. Feathers are particularly useful in dinocoloration.
JINGMAI O'CONNOR: In things like feathers, there are structural colors, which actually have to do with little tiny spaces, little air pockets within the feather that basically refract the light and then create these really cool colors like brilliant greens and purples. So the colors of a peacock are structural colors.
DAVID ZHA: So it's not just the color of the feather itself that matters but also the empty spaces between feathers. Fossilized feathers show us that some dinosaurs could have been really bright and vivid. Not only that, some dinosaurs were able to use color to blend in with their surroundings.
JINGMAI O'CONNOR: We're actually even able to identify things like crypsis, which is a type of camouflage that allows you to blend in with your background, which is-- this has been identified in, I think, an ichthyosaur which is a marine reptile that basically looks like a dolphin with huge eyes, but it's a reptile. It's also been shown in a little dinosaur called psittacosaurus. These animals have what's called counter shading when their bellies are lighter than their backs, which is also a pattern that we see in a lot of living animals.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DAVID ZHA: So when it comes to the color of dinosaurs, it seems like we already know so much more than we did several years ago. But according to Jingmai, this kind of study is only getting started.
JINGMAI O'CONNOR: With these color studies, we're really just looking at a small part of the spectrum. But still, this is very new research. It only started within the past decade. So who knows what new techniques we'll come up with to identify other types of fossil color and who knows what we will know in another 10 years from now.
DAVID ZHA: For Dino Edition, I'm David Zha in Washington D.C.
ELIANA: And I'm Eliana in New York.
MOLLY BLOOM: And I'm Molly in Minneapolis.
ELIANA: It's really fun to imagine what dinosaurs look like.
MOLLY BLOOM: And in books and museum exhibits, we often see awesome illustrations of dinosaurs.
ELIANA: Up next, a special commentator.
MOLLY BLOOM: An actual museum who did some soul searching to find out where those terrific drawings of dinosaurs come from.
MUSEUM: I wanted to help people learn about how cool dinosaurs are. I'm a museum, and let's be honest. Fossilized skeletons are awesome, but sometimes, I want to show people more than just bones.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So I have paintings. I have drawings. They show what dinosaurs might have looked like, and I'd never thought to ask where they came from until recently. Turns out, the people who make these images, they're paleoartists. They paint and draw prehistoric things like dinosaurs but plants and other animals, too. And many of them work very hard to make illustrations that match current science. How do I know?
[CHUCKLES]
I met one of these artists, Emily Willoughby. You might have seen her work in the Field Museum in Chicago.
EMILY WILLOUGHBY: One of the best things about paleoart is to try and present dinosaurs as living animals.
MUSEUM: Could not agree more.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
When Emily illustrates a dinosaur, she asks a lot of questions about its life.
EMILY WILLOUGHBY: Was it a predator or an herbivore? Did it live in social groups maybe? How did it move its arms and its legs? How did it hold its body? Was it a fast runner and even what kind of behaviors it might have been engaging in.
MUSEUM: Fascinating. Emily finds some answers in science papers. As you know, if you've read my very informative plaques and posters, fossilized footprints can tell you whether a dinosaur was hanging out in a group or strolling solo. Fossilized bones and poop can tell you what a dino ate.
Those clues from the fossil record are always getting updated. Like, we used to think dinosaurs were only covered in scales, and now we know some had scales but some had feathers. Fossils sometimes also have color information locked away, but when they don't, Emily thinks about what colors and markings might have helped a dinosaur live its life.
EMILY WILLOUGHBY: I've drawn T-Rex with like stripes like a tiger might have had.
MUSEUM: We can't be sure the T-Rex had stripes. Stripes might have helped T-Rex stalk prey the same way tigers use their stripes to stay hidden in tall grass.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'll admit it. Sometimes, I get bored of my old art, and I want some new pictures. So I love that these illustrations often change when paleontologists learn new things about dinos.
EMILY WILLOUGHBY: We've had new discoveries that were just totally unpredictable.
MUSEUM: Update those colors, update those arms, update the tails. We're learning more about dinosaurs, so keep those pictures coming, Emily. The people want to see dinosaur art, and we're going to show it to them.
ELIANA: That was an actual museum telling us where their images of dinosaurs come from.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, another update on the mystery sound is coming in. Before we give you that update, let's hear it one more time.
[MYSTERY SOUND]
All right, there's a lot going on in that sound. Eliana, what are your thoughts?
ELIANA: Well, actually, I think I might change my answer because it sounded like a food processor. Like it slices the food. Like you put the food in it, slices it up. I have one of those at home, and my dad always uses it. So it really sounds like one of those. I think I'm going to change my answer.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK, that is really astute listening. Let's hear the answer.
JAMES: Hi, my name is James, and I live in Greensboro, North Carolina. And that was me juicing some carrots and apples in my mom's juicer. She helped me.
MOLLY BLOOM: So it was a juicer. Eliana, you were very close.
ELIANA: Yes, that's what I was thinking.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, because you heard that chopping sound at the beginning because that must have been chopping the carrot or the apple and then putting it in the juicer to turn it into juice.
[WHIRRING]
Well, Eliana, it's time to clear the air on something you actually wondered about.
ELIANA: That's right.
MOLLY BLOOM: We're covering one of your questions about dinosaurs.
ELIANA: If birds did not fart, then did dinosaurs fart because birds are related to dinosaurs?
MOLLY BLOOM: It's a great and stinky question. Tell us a little bit about where that question came from.
ELIANA: Well, I was listening to your podcast on animal farts. And I heard that you guys said birds didn't fart. And I like to go to the Natural History Museum a lot with my family, and I read that dinosaurs related to birds. So I came up with this question and put it all together.
MOLLY BLOOM: Very excellent and curious thinking. You traced a fact about birds back to their way back relatives dinosaurs.
ELIANA: Yeah. And that's a big part of how scientists learn about dinosaurs, too.
MOLLY BLOOM: From the Bodily Function Desk, Dino Edition's Menaka Wilhelm reports.
MENAKA WILHELM: Let's start with the non-farters.
JEFF WILSON MANTILLA: Carnivorous dinosaurs probably didn't fart.
MENAKA WILHELM: Jeff Wilson Mantilla is a Curator at the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology. He says meat-eating dinosaurs probably weren't making toots because they could digest their food without making gas. They would have used their digestive acid to break down food like birds, or some of them might have had little stones that helped them grind things up. To find the farts, we have to find the dinosaurs who ate plants like we do.
JEFF WILSON MANTILLA: Because animals like us can't break down plant cell walls or cellulose, we need help.
MENAKA WILHELM: And who helps us? Gut microbes like bacteria. When they break down stuff you eat, they also make gas that you fart out. Here, I must point out that there are actually some birds that eat plants and fart.
JEFF WILSON MANTILLA: There is a thing called a watson. It's an animal that you find in Colombia or Venezuela. They're really beautiful looking birds, but they're also called stink birds because they have a smell to them. They eat plants, and they have a smell associated with the aromatics that are produced during that process.
MENAKA WILHELM: Ah, aromatics, great word for farts. Back to those plant-eating dinosaurs like sauropods, Jeff says, these dinos ate plants and had big bellies for microbes to hang out in. So they probably were making gas for toots.
JEFF WILSON MANTILLA: And they would have produced a lot of it.
MENAKA WILHELM: So there you have it. Carnivores probably no, but herbivores, probably yes. For Dino Edition, I'm Menaka Wilhelm in Los Angeles. Toodaloo.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: Scientists can learn a lot about dinosaurs lives from fossils.
ELIANA: A few dinosaur colors have been preserved in fossils.
MOLLY BLOOM: But scientists also try to understand dinosaurs by thinking about how living animals go about their business.
ELIANA: Dinosaurs' coloring probably would have helped them blend in or find mates.
MOLLY BLOOM: And based on what we know about living plant eaters and meat eaters related to dinosaurs--
ELIANA: Meat-eating dinosaurs probably didn't fart.
MOLLY BLOOM: But plant-eating dinosaurs probably did.
ELIANA: That's it for this episode of Brains On. It was produced by Menaka Wilhelm, Marc Sanchez, Sanden Totten, and Molly Bloom.
MOLLY BLOOM: We had production help from David Zha and Christina Lopez, engineering help from Cameron Wiley, and editing from Phyllis Fletcher. Special thanks to Jenna Hirsch, Farah and Daniela, Nora McInerney, Andy Doucette, Kathryn Richard, Stuart Bloom, and Emily Bright.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: One more update before we go.
ELIANA: It's the Moment of Um.
[SAYING UM]
BRI: How do you make clay for pottery?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
LAUREN SANDLER: Essentially, clay is rock that has been decomposed by weather. More specifically, clay is igneous rock, which is formed when molten rock under the Earth's surface solidifies. I am Lauren Sandler, and I am a ceramic artist and educator.
Feldspar is one of our most common rock forming minerals on the Earth. So when feldspar gets weathered, there's a chemical change that happens to feldspar. And so what happens is the molecule of water gets chemically bonded to it. And that's actually what turns it into clay. That's what makes it soft and malleable.
When we make something with clay, I shape it with my hands, and we put it back in the kiln, then we put it through that intense process of heat, that chemically bonded water escapes and that material turns back to stone. To make it into clay, it takes thousands of years and then hours in a kiln turns it back to stone.
Not all clay is the same. Not all clay is workable or best suited for example, making pottery. We can find it in many different places. Good places to maybe go explore to see maybe if there's clay is in areas by water, such as lakes, and ponds, and streams, or even where the earth has been dug up like in an area or maybe a construction site, where they're digging deep into the Earth. There's probably clay under there.
And so there's some things you can do to find out if maybe that is workable clay. So what one can do if you're walking by a stream and you're curious, what is this here? Can I make something with this? You can literally go pick up a little bit of that material that you find by the water, then you can roll it up in your hand and see if it actually shapes a ball.
Then you can even roll it in between your hands and make a little coil. And that, too, oh, it's holding the shape of a coil, that means there's some fine particles in there. There's some clay in there. And then you can even bend that coil and see how much does it hold its shape or how much does it break? The more it breaks, maybe the more other materials are in there. But the more it holds its shape, that means there's some clay in there. There's some good material there to potentially play with and shape with.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[SAYING UM]
MOLLY BLOOM: This list of names has shaped our show. It's time for the Brains Honor Roll. These are the amazing listeners who share their questions, ideas, mystery sounds, drawings, and high fives with us.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[LISTING HONOR ROLL]
ROBOT: (SINGING) Brains Honor Roll, high five.
MOLLY BLOOM: Brains On will be back soon with more answers to your questions.
ELIANA: Thanks for tuning in. Stick around. Coming up next is Wait, Wait, Don't Smell Me.
CHILD: Brains On is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
[RADIO STATIONS CHANGING]
RADIO LISTENER: Ah, I can't find anything to listen to before the next episode of Brains On comes out. .
ALT POTATO RADIO DJ: That was Tater and the Tots with their latest banger, Fry Me A River.
[RADIO STATIONS CHANGING]
RADIO LISTENER: Nah, Alt Potato Radio isn't my thing. I keep telling everybody, Pickle Radio is where it's at.
RADIO ANNOUNCER: Time to dial. If you're caller 10, you and a friend are going to Skunk-A-Palooza. We'll have a winner right after we hear from our sponsor Limburger Cheese.
RADIO LISTENER: Ew. That station stinks.
[RADIO STATIONS CHANGING]
SLEEPY DJ: Are you bored? Us, too. And that's the way we like it. We're about to get into our 2-hour commercial-free set of recordings of a cardboard box.
[YAWNS]
Pretty boring. Oh yeah.
[RADIO STATIONS CHANGING]
RADIO LISTENER: No, that's going to put me right to sleep.
[RADIO STATIONS CHANGING]
RADIO ANNOUNCER: Tune in to Tall Things Considered, Saturdays at noon, followed by Wait, Wait, Don't Smell Me at 1:00. Coming up next, it's Dino Edition, the all-dinosaur broadcast. Special guest host on today's Dino Edition, Molly Bloom and Eliana from Brains On.
RADIO LISTENER: Yes, I love this show!
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: This is Dino Edition from Brains On and American Public Media. I'm Molly Bloom in Minneapolis.
ELIANA: And I'm Eliana in New York City.
MOLLY BLOOM: Today on the show, what dinosaurs were actually like.
ELIANA: And how scientists had to figure that out.
MOLLY BLOOM: But first, a look at traffic with Sanden Totten.
[CARS HUMMING]
SANDEN TOTTEN: Molly, the traffic out here today is bonkers.
[CROW CAWING]
We've got living dinosaurs sitting on tree branches. They're finding worms to eat. They're flying every which way overhead.
[WINGS FLAPPING]
What's that you say? Living dinosaurs? Has Sanden eaten seven bags of cotton candy again?
[CROW CAWING]
Well, yes, I have, but I'm right about the living dinosaurs thing. You see, dinosaurs were a big and varied group of animals. We know about hundreds of different dinosaurs, but there were probably many, many, many more that we don't know about. A lot of what we know about them comes from fossils, which are basically bits of dinosaurs that wound up preserved in rock.
Many of these fossils are bones, but there were also fossilized dino poop, footprints, skin impressions, feathers, cake recipes. OK, not cake recipes, but the rest of that stuff. And by looking at those feathers and dinosaur bones, scientists came to the startling, amazing conclusion that some dinosaurs evolved into birds. Yes, birds.
That means that all birds evolved from the same group of meat eating dinosaurs that includes Tyrannosaurus Rex! So that's why these birds are, in fact, living dinosaurs. Oh, and one's coming this way. Oh, hello, little cutie. (BABY VOICE) You tiny wittle ancestor of the T-Rex. You couldn't possibly hurt me. Oh no, oh no--
Oh. [LAUGHS] I don't have any birdseed, sorry, or worms, or--
[CHICKENS CLUCKING]
Hey, hey, stop. Stop pecking at me. Ow, stop chasing me. Ah! I'm being chased by a living dinosaur! OK, got to run. Back to you, Molly. Thanks!
[FLURRY OF BIRDS]
MOLLY BLOOM: Well, thank you, Sanden, for that informative traffic report.
ELIANA: You're listening to Dino Edition.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ANNOUNCER: Questions for Dino Edition come from Brains On listeners, asking incredible questions for many years running, like--
LIAM: Hello, my name is Liam from Oakville, Ontario, Canada, and my question is, why do we assume dinosaurs are Earth tone colors? Because birds descend from dinosaurs and birds are very colorful.
ANNOUNCER: An answer to Liam's question will be heard in a minute. You can send your questions to Brains On at brainson.org/contact.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ELIANA: You're listening to Dino Edition. I'm Eliana.
MOLLY BLOOM: And I'm Molly. If you've ever been to a Natural History Museum, chances are you've seen a replica of a dinosaur skeleton. There it is all dug up and shiny, reassembled, and propped up on some metal poles. Pretty amazing, right?
ELIANA: But you know what's missing? Everything else. No skin, no feathers, no muscles, or eyelids.
MOLLY BLOOM: So how do scientists think about what was on the outside of dinosaurs?
ELIANA: Sometimes, fossils have clues, but other times, they don't.
MOLLY BLOOM: In those cases, scientists look at living animals to make educated guesses. We're looking for some of these real live animals to give us a call and tell us what that's like. Let's go to the phones.
ELIANA: Our first caller is an elephant. Hello.
ELEPHANT: (OVER THE PHONE) Hi, yes. I am an elephant. Scientists compare me to sauropod dinosaurs, you know, the big dinos with the super long necks and tails. They have four legs, eat plants? Yeah, scientists think sauropods might have been brownish like me because even though we're not very closely related, we live similar lives. We're big vegetarians. Plus, bright colors make it easier for other animals to eat us. So muted shades probably suit us best.
MOLLY BLOOM: Wow, great point from that elephant.
ELIANA: Thanks for calling in.
[ELEPHANT TRUMPETS]
MOLLY BLOOM: Up next, we have a crocodile.
CROCODILE: (OVER THE PHONE) Hi, yeah, can you hear me?
MOLLY BLOOM: Yes, Crocodile, you're on the line with Dino Edition.
CROCODILE: (OVER THE PHONE) OK, great, longtime listener, first time caller. So I just wanted to say me and the other crocodiles, we didn't choose to be these dark green or tan colors. We evolved this way over millions of years. Earth tones help us blend in, and you can get a lot more to eat if you blend in well. Also, dinosaurs and crocodiles actually go way back. We have a common ancestor that lived 250 million years ago. It gave rise to both dinosaurs and crocodiles. But that's another story.
ELIANA: Wow, OK. Let's take one more caller, a cardinal.
cardinal: (OVER THE PHONE) Hi, yes, I'm a huge fan of the show. Thanks for taking my call. Anyway, yeah, I'm a cardinal, you know, bright red, small beak. I want to say, yes, I am beautifully colored, but it's not all me. Like flamingos, my coloring comes from what I eat. See, the seeds I eat have chemicals called carotenoids that make my bright red coloring. So for example, meat eating dinosaurs, they wouldn't have been eating these kinds of chemicals because they couldn't have gotten bright red coloring the same way that I do.
ELIANA: Thank you. That was a Cardinal.
cardinal: (OVER THE PHONE) Oh, yeah, one more thing, scientists say that some dinosaurs had their own versions of bright coloring, colors that didn't depend on their diets.
MOLLY BLOOM: That is so interesting, and I think that's all the time we have--
CARDINAL: (OVER THE PHONE) Oh, and bright colors can help you attract mates! Scientists say that's what my bright red feathers do for me.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK. Thanks for calling in. It's always so great to hear from our audience.
CARDINAL: (OVER THE PHONE) Oh, this is an--
[LINE CUTS OFF]
MOLLY BLOOM: Oops, looks like we--
[CLEARS THROAT]
--lost that call.
ELIANA: To sum up those insights, Earth tones might have helped dinosaurs blend in.
MOLLY BLOOM: But it's also true that for some dinosaurs bright colors could have helped them find mates.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
More on dino colors in a bit, but Eliana, we've just received a breaking update. Yes, our producers are telling me, it's time for the--
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHILD: (WHISPERS) Mystery sound.
MOLLY BLOOM: So we will need your guess. Are you ready, Eliana?
ELIANA: Yes, I am.
MOLLY BLOOM: Here it is.
[MYSTERY SOUND]
So, Eliana, do you have a guess?
ELIANA: Yeah, it sounded like some sort of machine sucking something up? It sounded like when they put mail in the tube, and they suck it up.
MOLLY BLOOM: Mm.
ELIANA: It like where they put it in the thing, and they suck it up. It sounded similar to that.
MOLLY BLOOM: It's like one of those pneumatic tubes.
ELIANA: Yeah.
MOLLY BLOOM: Very good guess. We'll have an update on that in a bit. Stay with us.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ANNOUNCER: Special thanks to the idea of time travel. Going anywhere you want in the future or past would be fascinating, and Brains On is making an episode about it. So please send us where you'd want to travel in time. The future? The past? Pick any time you like and tell us why at brainson.org/contact. That's brainson.org/contact. And extra special thanks to listeners who have sent in their ideas, mystery sounds, and questions. Here's one more we'll be answering at the end of the show.
BRI: Hello, my name is Bri. I'm from Ottawa, Ontario, and my question is, how do you make clay for pottery?
ANNOUNCER: We'll also get an Honor Roll update of the listeners who have reached out at brainson.org/contact. That's brainson.org/contact.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ANNOUNCER: Questions for Dino Edition come from Brains On listeners, sending in great questions every day like--
ENOCH: My question is how did archeologists know how the dinosaurs look like?
ANNOUNCER: That question comes from Enoch. Learn more in just a moment.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: This is Dino Edition from Brains On and American Public Media. I'm Molly.
ELIANA: And I'm Eliana.
MOLLY BLOOM: So we know scientists can look to living animals for clues about what dinosaurs looked like.
ELIANA: But there are other clues that could be decoded from fossils. They could even tell us more about their color.
MOLLY BLOOM: Dino Edition reporter David Zha has the story.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DAVID ZHA: Humans have speculated for over a century about what dinosaurs may have looked like. Paintings from the 1800s depicted them as giant leathery lizards using colors like gray, brown, and dull green. But nowadays, new evidence has totally changed the way we think about dinosaurs.
Modern artists aren't afraid to draw dinosaurs in new ways with bright colors and feathered wings, purple, yellow, orange, lime green. Nothing is off limits anymore. So how do paleontologists figure out what colors dinosaurs actually were? I called Jingmai O'Connor to find out. She's an Associate Curator of Fossil Reptiles at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
JINGMAI O'CONNOR: So you have melanosome-based colorations. Basically, there's these pigment molecules inside skin that creates a set of colors.
DAVID ZHA: Melanosomes are molecules that determine how dark an animal's color is. By studying the melanosomes and pigment molecules of modern creatures, paleontologists are sometimes able to figure out what shades and colors extinct dinosaurs may have been.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JINGMAI O'CONNOR: We have studied what different shapes mean in terms of living animals. So we know that if it's like a round little meatball-shaped melanosome, then it's like a rusty red color. Or if it's a long, sausage-shaped melanosome, it means black. And if they're aligned in parallel to each other, maybe it means iridescent black. Then we can look at the melanosomes that are preserved in the fossil record and say, hey, that's the same as like little meatballs. OK, we have a red color, that kind of thing.
DAVID ZHA: This method has given paleontologists new insight into how certain dinos looked.
JINGMAI O'CONNOR: So we have studied, for example, this flying dinosaur microraptor. It's really cool animal. It has wings on its forelimbs, and also, its legs are also wings. It's very cool. And studies have shown that this animal was iridescent black.
DAVID ZHA: Iridescent means to shimmer or gleam in the light. So microraptor was black, but it would have appeared to change color if you looked at it from a different angle. But anyways, the color testing that Jingmai is describing, it does have its limits.
JINGMAI O'CONNOR: One hadrosaur has been sampled, and it seems that it was gray. But it was only one specimen, so we know that, at least, some hadrosaurs were gray. We only know that one part of the body was gray. We don't know what the whole body was because we only have part of the skin. So we don't know if all hadrosaurs were gray, but at least one hadrosaur had at least one part of its body that was gray.
DAVID ZHA: Even with new fossil evidence of preserved dinosaur colors, the amount paleontologists can know for sure is still limited. But limited evidence is still better than no evidence.
JINGMAI O'CONNOR: Most of the color studies that have been done for fossil animals are from feathered dinosaurs and Mesozoic birds.
DAVID ZHA: Oh, yes, dinosaurs with feathers. You might not see any feathered dinosaurs in movies like Jurassic Park, but that's science fiction. Feathers are particularly useful in dinocoloration.
JINGMAI O'CONNOR: In things like feathers, there are structural colors, which actually have to do with little tiny spaces, little air pockets within the feather that basically refract the light and then create these really cool colors like brilliant greens and purples. So the colors of a peacock are structural colors.
DAVID ZHA: So it's not just the color of the feather itself that matters but also the empty spaces between feathers. Fossilized feathers show us that some dinosaurs could have been really bright and vivid. Not only that, some dinosaurs were able to use color to blend in with their surroundings.
JINGMAI O'CONNOR: We're actually even able to identify things like crypsis, which is a type of camouflage that allows you to blend in with your background, which is-- this has been identified in, I think, an ichthyosaur which is a marine reptile that basically looks like a dolphin with huge eyes, but it's a reptile. It's also been shown in a little dinosaur called psittacosaurus. These animals have what's called counter shading when their bellies are lighter than their backs, which is also a pattern that we see in a lot of living animals.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DAVID ZHA: So when it comes to the color of dinosaurs, it seems like we already know so much more than we did several years ago. But according to Jingmai, this kind of study is only getting started.
JINGMAI O'CONNOR: With these color studies, we're really just looking at a small part of the spectrum. But still, this is very new research. It only started within the past decade. So who knows what new techniques we'll come up with to identify other types of fossil color and who knows what we will know in another 10 years from now.
DAVID ZHA: For Dino Edition, I'm David Zha in Washington D.C.
ELIANA: And I'm Eliana in New York.
MOLLY BLOOM: And I'm Molly in Minneapolis.
ELIANA: It's really fun to imagine what dinosaurs look like.
MOLLY BLOOM: And in books and museum exhibits, we often see awesome illustrations of dinosaurs.
ELIANA: Up next, a special commentator.
MOLLY BLOOM: An actual museum who did some soul searching to find out where those terrific drawings of dinosaurs come from.
MUSEUM: I wanted to help people learn about how cool dinosaurs are. I'm a museum, and let's be honest. Fossilized skeletons are awesome, but sometimes, I want to show people more than just bones.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So I have paintings. I have drawings. They show what dinosaurs might have looked like, and I'd never thought to ask where they came from until recently. Turns out, the people who make these images, they're paleoartists. They paint and draw prehistoric things like dinosaurs but plants and other animals, too. And many of them work very hard to make illustrations that match current science. How do I know?
[CHUCKLES]
I met one of these artists, Emily Willoughby. You might have seen her work in the Field Museum in Chicago.
EMILY WILLOUGHBY: One of the best things about paleoart is to try and present dinosaurs as living animals.
MUSEUM: Could not agree more.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
When Emily illustrates a dinosaur, she asks a lot of questions about its life.
EMILY WILLOUGHBY: Was it a predator or an herbivore? Did it live in social groups maybe? How did it move its arms and its legs? How did it hold its body? Was it a fast runner and even what kind of behaviors it might have been engaging in.
MUSEUM: Fascinating. Emily finds some answers in science papers. As you know, if you've read my very informative plaques and posters, fossilized footprints can tell you whether a dinosaur was hanging out in a group or strolling solo. Fossilized bones and poop can tell you what a dino ate.
Those clues from the fossil record are always getting updated. Like, we used to think dinosaurs were only covered in scales, and now we know some had scales but some had feathers. Fossils sometimes also have color information locked away, but when they don't, Emily thinks about what colors and markings might have helped a dinosaur live its life.
EMILY WILLOUGHBY: I've drawn T-Rex with like stripes like a tiger might have had.
MUSEUM: We can't be sure the T-Rex had stripes. Stripes might have helped T-Rex stalk prey the same way tigers use their stripes to stay hidden in tall grass.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'll admit it. Sometimes, I get bored of my old art, and I want some new pictures. So I love that these illustrations often change when paleontologists learn new things about dinos.
EMILY WILLOUGHBY: We've had new discoveries that were just totally unpredictable.
MUSEUM: Update those colors, update those arms, update the tails. We're learning more about dinosaurs, so keep those pictures coming, Emily. The people want to see dinosaur art, and we're going to show it to them.
ELIANA: That was an actual museum telling us where their images of dinosaurs come from.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: Oh, another update on the mystery sound is coming in. Before we give you that update, let's hear it one more time.
[MYSTERY SOUND]
All right, there's a lot going on in that sound. Eliana, what are your thoughts?
ELIANA: Well, actually, I think I might change my answer because it sounded like a food processor. Like it slices the food. Like you put the food in it, slices it up. I have one of those at home, and my dad always uses it. So it really sounds like one of those. I think I'm going to change my answer.
MOLLY BLOOM: OK, that is really astute listening. Let's hear the answer.
JAMES: Hi, my name is James, and I live in Greensboro, North Carolina. And that was me juicing some carrots and apples in my mom's juicer. She helped me.
MOLLY BLOOM: So it was a juicer. Eliana, you were very close.
ELIANA: Yes, that's what I was thinking.
MOLLY BLOOM: Yeah, because you heard that chopping sound at the beginning because that must have been chopping the carrot or the apple and then putting it in the juicer to turn it into juice.
[WHIRRING]
Well, Eliana, it's time to clear the air on something you actually wondered about.
ELIANA: That's right.
MOLLY BLOOM: We're covering one of your questions about dinosaurs.
ELIANA: If birds did not fart, then did dinosaurs fart because birds are related to dinosaurs?
MOLLY BLOOM: It's a great and stinky question. Tell us a little bit about where that question came from.
ELIANA: Well, I was listening to your podcast on animal farts. And I heard that you guys said birds didn't fart. And I like to go to the Natural History Museum a lot with my family, and I read that dinosaurs related to birds. So I came up with this question and put it all together.
MOLLY BLOOM: Very excellent and curious thinking. You traced a fact about birds back to their way back relatives dinosaurs.
ELIANA: Yeah. And that's a big part of how scientists learn about dinosaurs, too.
MOLLY BLOOM: From the Bodily Function Desk, Dino Edition's Menaka Wilhelm reports.
MENAKA WILHELM: Let's start with the non-farters.
JEFF WILSON MANTILLA: Carnivorous dinosaurs probably didn't fart.
MENAKA WILHELM: Jeff Wilson Mantilla is a Curator at the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology. He says meat-eating dinosaurs probably weren't making toots because they could digest their food without making gas. They would have used their digestive acid to break down food like birds, or some of them might have had little stones that helped them grind things up. To find the farts, we have to find the dinosaurs who ate plants like we do.
JEFF WILSON MANTILLA: Because animals like us can't break down plant cell walls or cellulose, we need help.
MENAKA WILHELM: And who helps us? Gut microbes like bacteria. When they break down stuff you eat, they also make gas that you fart out. Here, I must point out that there are actually some birds that eat plants and fart.
JEFF WILSON MANTILLA: There is a thing called a watson. It's an animal that you find in Colombia or Venezuela. They're really beautiful looking birds, but they're also called stink birds because they have a smell to them. They eat plants, and they have a smell associated with the aromatics that are produced during that process.
MENAKA WILHELM: Ah, aromatics, great word for farts. Back to those plant-eating dinosaurs like sauropods, Jeff says, these dinos ate plants and had big bellies for microbes to hang out in. So they probably were making gas for toots.
JEFF WILSON MANTILLA: And they would have produced a lot of it.
MENAKA WILHELM: So there you have it. Carnivores probably no, but herbivores, probably yes. For Dino Edition, I'm Menaka Wilhelm in Los Angeles. Toodaloo.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: Scientists can learn a lot about dinosaurs lives from fossils.
ELIANA: A few dinosaur colors have been preserved in fossils.
MOLLY BLOOM: But scientists also try to understand dinosaurs by thinking about how living animals go about their business.
ELIANA: Dinosaurs' coloring probably would have helped them blend in or find mates.
MOLLY BLOOM: And based on what we know about living plant eaters and meat eaters related to dinosaurs--
ELIANA: Meat-eating dinosaurs probably didn't fart.
MOLLY BLOOM: But plant-eating dinosaurs probably did.
ELIANA: That's it for this episode of Brains On. It was produced by Menaka Wilhelm, Marc Sanchez, Sanden Totten, and Molly Bloom.
MOLLY BLOOM: We had production help from David Zha and Christina Lopez, engineering help from Cameron Wiley, and editing from Phyllis Fletcher. Special thanks to Jenna Hirsch, Farah and Daniela, Nora McInerney, Andy Doucette, Kathryn Richard, Stuart Bloom, and Emily Bright.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MOLLY BLOOM: One more update before we go.
ELIANA: It's the Moment of Um.
[SAYING UM]
BRI: How do you make clay for pottery?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
LAUREN SANDLER: Essentially, clay is rock that has been decomposed by weather. More specifically, clay is igneous rock, which is formed when molten rock under the Earth's surface solidifies. I am Lauren Sandler, and I am a ceramic artist and educator.
Feldspar is one of our most common rock forming minerals on the Earth. So when feldspar gets weathered, there's a chemical change that happens to feldspar. And so what happens is the molecule of water gets chemically bonded to it. And that's actually what turns it into clay. That's what makes it soft and malleable.
When we make something with clay, I shape it with my hands, and we put it back in the kiln, then we put it through that intense process of heat, that chemically bonded water escapes and that material turns back to stone. To make it into clay, it takes thousands of years and then hours in a kiln turns it back to stone.
Not all clay is the same. Not all clay is workable or best suited for example, making pottery. We can find it in many different places. Good places to maybe go explore to see maybe if there's clay is in areas by water, such as lakes, and ponds, and streams, or even where the earth has been dug up like in an area or maybe a construction site, where they're digging deep into the Earth. There's probably clay under there.
And so there's some things you can do to find out if maybe that is workable clay. So what one can do if you're walking by a stream and you're curious, what is this here? Can I make something with this? You can literally go pick up a little bit of that material that you find by the water, then you can roll it up in your hand and see if it actually shapes a ball.
Then you can even roll it in between your hands and make a little coil. And that, too, oh, it's holding the shape of a coil, that means there's some fine particles in there. There's some clay in there. And then you can even bend that coil and see how much does it hold its shape or how much does it break? The more it breaks, maybe the more other materials are in there. But the more it holds its shape, that means there's some clay in there. There's some good material there to potentially play with and shape with.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[SAYING UM]
MOLLY BLOOM: This list of names has shaped our show. It's time for the Brains Honor Roll. These are the amazing listeners who share their questions, ideas, mystery sounds, drawings, and high fives with us.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[LISTING HONOR ROLL]
ROBOT: (SINGING) Brains Honor Roll, high five.
MOLLY BLOOM: Brains On will be back soon with more answers to your questions.
ELIANA: Thanks for tuning in. Stick around. Coming up next is Wait, Wait, Don't Smell Me.
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