Anchiornis

Fossil melanosomes preserved in Anchiornis huxleyi have allowed researchers to reconstruct its entire color pattern, a rare feat among extinct animals. This crow-sized feathered theropod was barely 0.4 meters long and about 100 grams, with black and white striped wings and a reddish crest atop its head. Its diet appears to have been largely insectivorous. Recovered from the Tiaojishan Formation of China and described by Xu Xing and colleagues in 2009, it lived in the Late Jurassic, roughly 161 to 145 million years ago. Its anatomy sits close to the transition between non-avian dinosaurs and birds, placing it at the center of research on the origins of feathers and flight.