He began to look at lots of different fossils under high-powered microscopes and realized that many of them preserved a variety of small, bubblelike structures. Comparisons to modern animal tissues showed these to be melanosomes: pigment-bearing vessels. Because melanosomes of different size and shape correspond to different colors—sausage-shaped ones make black; meatball-shaped ones, a rusty red; and so on—Jakob gathered that by looking at fossilized melanosomes, you could tell what colors prehistoric animals would have been when they were alive. We were always told this was impossible, but
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