color of dinos - why blue and not green for example

Well, friends, I am back. This time I have a question that might be very silly for some of the old timers in this field. However, I am only an amateur so forgive me. Basically, I would like to find out how the scientists figure out the skin patterns and especially colors. I see some extraordinary coloration of some dinos, such as colors of Sweden, sharp blue and yellow. How do we know that such a particular dino was really dressed up in such colors? I might buy skin pattern but colors. Can you really get it from fossil bones, etc.? This sounds like science fiction or doesn't it? I know that the above might be an ignorant statement; thus, I ask you, audience, to bring me back to light and dazzle me with some heavy info.

Dino amateur

On 4 Dec 1997, ARTUR KEDZIORA wrote:

see http://umbc.edu/~tkeese1/dinosaur/askmike.htm#colors

We can't. The colors are 'inferences' or 'educated guesses' based on the knowledge of the colors of living reptiles and the habitats of the ancient reptiles. The habitat information is inferred from, among other things, fossil plants.

I don't think so. Some reptiles have interesting coloration, and birds are very colorful, so maybe dinos were too.

Whenever I see an artists rendition of a triceratops, I mentally add a huge set of false eyes displayed on their bony skull crest. It's pure fantasy, but if they had to deal with a predator that attacked they eyes, it could peck away at those bony crests for days without doing any damage.

Whenever I think about sabre tooths, I mentally paint them wolf gray, which I think is more likely than yellow.

They don't: they make educated guesses and other guestimates in (almost?) all cases.

Jarno Peschier, computer science student, Utrecht University

Yeah, smilodon. And I suppose most cats are yellowish, tawney or brown, but boreal cats aren't. The Norway lynx is gray, bobcats are gray, the snow leopard is gray and white. Gray just seems to be a better color for an ice age predator, at least to me.

Likewise. And as long as nobody digs one out of a glacier, I'll continue to paint 'em gray in my head.