[Marie]

I don’t know why people assume they were brightly colored. Most birds are shades of white, grey, brown and black. They need to be camouflaged, too. I have a roadrunner who hangs out in the back yard every morning. He’s black, brown and white.

If he weren’t, it’d be much more difficult for him to hunt.

We notice the cardinal because it’s so noticeable. We make a note of it because it’s unusual.

Show me an owl or an eagle with red and blue feathers.

Some may have been, but I can’t see it being the norm.

[ottbmare]

Birds in a temperate climate filled with deciduous trees tend to be dull-colored, since that’s the best camouflage. But in jungles they blend in by being various bright shades of green, yellow, and red, like their surroundings. It might be reasonable to surmise that dinosaurs often blended with the prevalent colors of their habitat, and in some cases that might have meant bright green with bits of other colors, or mud-color, or the blue and turquoise of water. Look at the way the orange-and-white-and-black tiger blends perfectly with his habitat. It’s interesting to speculate. But you’re right that predators aren’t typically a color that makes them stand out to their prey. And vice versa.

[spetznaz]

I don’t know why people assume they were brightly colored. Most birds are shades of white, grey, brown and black. They need to be camouflaged, too. I have a roadrunner who hangs out in the back yard every morning. He’s black, brown and white. If he weren’t, it’d be much more difficult for him to hunt. We notice the cardinal because it’s so noticeable. We make a note of it because it’s unusual.

Good points. I was basing my post on an article I read that had pictures of feathered and brightly-colored dinosaurs. I believe for the velociraptor it was to be used as a form of color display (similar to how males of certain species use color for various forms of display e.g. threat displays and mating displays). The article stated that the way the scientists knew about the colors was via Melanosomes. "Melanosomes are colour-bearing organelles buried within the structure of feathers and hair in modern birds and mammals, giving black, grey, and rufous tones such as orange and brown. Because melanosomes are an integral part of the tough protein structure of the feather, they survive when a feather survives, even for hundreds of millions of years."

I also believe camouflage can work in different ways. For some it is about blending in as closely as possible (e.g. the mottled browns of a Puff Adder, or for that matter the earthly brown of a Lion that makes it blend quite well in the Savannah); for others it is breaking up the outline and giving forth a shape that is not readily identifiable as 'target' or 'predator' (e.g. the bright stripes of a tiger breaking up its shape, or even better yet the crazy and bright pattern of the Rhinocerous Viper that is found in my country of birth, Kenya); and for others it is simply to confuse (e.g. the effect of the stripes on a zebra when all the zebra are running together ...allegedly it confuses and throws off a lion that may have targeted one particular individual).

Show me an owl or an eagle with red and blue feathers.

That one is easy ...my favorite bird. The Bateleur Eagle is a large and amazingly colored Raptor that is also found in my birth country. Its plumage includes vivid colors, including reds and blues.