Bandit-masked dinosaur hid from its prey and predators

It was a Halloween costume, dinosaur-style.

New research reveals how a small, feathered dinosaur about 126 million years ago used its color patterning — including a bandit-mask-like stripe across its eyes — to avoid detection both by its predators (like Tyrannosaurus rex) and by prey (small lizards).

“Far from all being the lumbering, prehistoric, gray beasts of past children’s books, at least some dinosaurs showed sophisticated color patterns to hide from and confuse predators, just like today’s animals,” said study lead author Fiann Smithwick, a paleontologist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom.

The small, fluffy dinosaur, called Sinosauropteryx, was roughly 3 feet long, weighed about 6 pounds and lived in present-day China. In 1996, it became the first dinosaur known to have had feathers, Nature magazine said.

Scientists used high-resolution cameras to examine three wellpreserved specimens of the creature. They were able to plot out how dark pigmented feathers were distributed across the body, which revealed some distinctive color patterns.

“Their color patterns very much resemble modern counterparts,” said study co-author Jakob Vinther, also of the University of Bristol. “They had excellent vision, were fierce predators, and would have evolved camouflage patterns like we see in living mammals and birds.”

The bandit-mask camouflage had not been seen in dinosaurs before. In modern birds, for instance, it helps to hide their eyes from would-be predators.

The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Current Biology.