Dinosaur used colors for protection

WASHINGTON - A small feathered dinosaur whose fossil was discovered in China used its different colors for protection, a study published on Thursday said, helping to dispel stereotypes about the long-extinct creatures.

"Far from all being the lumbering prehistoric gray beasts of children's books, at least some dinosaurs showed sophisticated color patterns to hide from and confuse predators, just like today's animals," said Fiann Smithwick, an author of the study published in the journal Current Biology.

By reconstructing the colors of the animal, which lived 130 million years ago, the researchers from Britain's University of Bristol determined that it had multiple types of camouflage.