WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There’s not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There’s an iridescent dinosaur. 
 
 An illustration of a reconstruction of the iridescent dinosaur which had rainbow feathers, named Caihong juji, unearthed in China, is shown in this October 31, 2016 photo released on January 15, 2018. Courtesy Velizar Simeonovski/The Field Museum for the University of Texas at Austin/Handout via REUTERS 
 
 Scientists on Monday announced the discovery of a crow-sized, bird-like dinosaur with colorful feathers from northeastern China that lived 161 million years ago during the Jurassic Period. 
 
 They named it Caihong, the Mandarin word for rainbow. Microscopic structures in the exquisitely preserved, nearly complete fossil unearthed in Hebei Province indicated that it boasted iridescent feathers, particularly on its head, neck and chest, with colors that shimmered and shifted in the light, like those of hummingbirds. 
 
 The discovery “suggests a more colorful Jurassic World than we previously imagined,” said evolutionary biologist Chad Eliason of the Field Museum in Chicago, one of the researchers in the study published in the journal Nature Communications. 
 
 Using powerful microscopes, the scientists detected within the feathers the remnants of organelles called melanosomes responsible for pigmentation. Their shape determines the color. Caihong’s feathers had pancake-shaped melanosomes similar to those of hummingbirds with iridescent feathers. 
 
 Much of its body had dark feathers, but ribbon-like iridescent feathers covered its head and neck. While it possessed many bird-like characteristics, the researchers doubted it could actually get airborne. Its plumage could have attracted mates while also providing insulation. 
 
 Caihong was a two-legged predator with a Velociraptor-like skull and sharp teeth, probably hunting small mammals and lizards. It had crests above its eyes that looked like bony eyebrows. 
 
 Many dinosaurs possessed feathers. Birds evolved from small feathered dinosaurs near the end of the Jurassic Period. Caihong had fuzzy feathers and pennaceous ones, those that look like writing quills. It is the earliest-known creature with asymmetrical feathers, a trait used by birds to steer when flying. Caihong’s were on its tail, suggesting tail feathers, not arm feathers, were first utilized for aerodynamic locomotion. 
 
 “It is extremely similar to some early birds such as Archaeopteryx,” said paleontologist Xing Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, referring to the earliest-known bird, which lived 150 million years ago. “Its forelimbs were configured like wings. To be honest, I am not sure what function the feathers have, and I don’t think that you can completely exclude the possibility that the feathers helped the animal to get in the air.” 
 
 Asked what someone might say upon seeing Caihong, University of Texas paleontologist Julia Clarke said, “‘Wow!’ And if they are anything like me, they might want one as a pet. Not suitable for children.” 
 
 The dinosaur’s full scientific name, Caihong juji, means “rainbow with a big crest.” ||||| View Images An artist's depiction of Caihong juji, a species of theropod dinosaur that lived 160 million years ago in what's now northeastern China. 
 
 Illustration by Velizar Simeonovski, The Field Museum 
 
 A new dinosaur discovered in China had feathers that may have glittered with the colors of the rainbow. Based on its stunningly preserved remains, scientists say the dinosaur’s head and chest seem to have been covered with iridescent feathers akin to those on modern hummingbirds. 
 
 The flashy display may have provided a social or sexual cue, like modern peacock tails. The dinosaur also has a bird-like body, including the sorts of feathers required for flight, but it has a crested head that more closely resembles that of a Velociraptor. 
 
 Dinosaurs 101 They ruled the Earth for more than 160 million years, but much about how dinosaurs lived and died remains a mystery. See what we know and don't know about the age of dinos. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Given these traits, the ancient animal has been named Caihong juji—Mandarin for “rainbow with the big crest”—the team reports today in the journal Nature Communications. 
 
 Caihong lived in forests and may have glided from tree to tree, preying on small mammals and lizards, says study co-author Xing Xu, a paleontologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In life, the duck-size carnivore would’ve weighed roughly a pound. 
 
 “I was shocked by its beautifully preserved feathers, even though I had seen many feathered dinosaur fossils previously,” adds Xu. 
 
 View Images The slab containing Caihong juji. Exceptional conditions allowed the dinosaur's feathers to fossilize along with its bones. 
 
 Photograph by The Field Museum 
 
 Rainbow in the Dark 
 
 Birds—the last living dinosaurs—use feathers today for flight, but feathers also help birds woo potential mates or jockey for social status. Dinosaur fossils suggest that feathers originally evolved for display, only later taking on the traits needed for flight. (Learn more about how feathers evolved.) 
 
 Like modern and ancient birds, dinosaurs likely had color vision and took advantage of it with striking, feathery displays. In exceptional cases, scientists can reveal dinosaur feathers’ original colors by finding vestiges of pigment sacs called melanosomes within fossilized plumes. (See the full-body coloration of the feathered dinosaur Anchiornis.) 
 
 Yang Jan, a local farmer, found the Caihong fossil in northeastern China’s Hebei Province. In February 2014, the Paleontological Museum of Liaoning acquired the fossil from Jan. 
 
 When scientists led by Dongyu Hu, a paleontologist at China’s Shenyang Normal University, examined the fossil, they found that its well-preserved remnants contained traces of pigment in its feathers. The team sampled 66 sites across the fossil, comparing the melanosomes they saw with melanosomes from modern bird feathers. 
 
 On Caihong’s head, chest, and parts of its tail, the researchers saw melanosomes that were long, flat, and organized into sheets. These patterns most closely match the melanosomes in the iridescent throat feathers of hummingbirds. 
 
 In hummingbirds, similar structures split light like a prism, creating a metallic sheen that changes color with the viewing angle. The team couldn’t reconstruct the dinosaur feathers’ exact colors, but they suspect that the observed pigments gave Caihong a rainbow glimmer. 
 
 See Hummingbirds Fly, Shake, Drink in Amazing Slow Motion They move so fast that human eyes see only a hovering spot of color, a blur of wings. But when frozen in time by high-speed cameras, hummingbirds yield their secrets. 
 
 Paleontologists have seen this sparkle in dinosaurs before. In 2012, scientists found evidence that the feathered dinosaur Microraptor glinted blue in the sun like modern crows and grackles. Unlike Caihong, though, Microraptor was iridescent all over—and it is much younger: Microraptor lived a full 40 million years after Caihong. 
 
 “When we put these data on the evolutionary tree, we recognize two different ways of creating iridescent color in small raptor dinosaurs before the origin of birds,” says Julia Clarke, a paleontologist at the University of Texas at Austin who coauthored the Caihong and Microraptor studies. 
 
 More Than a Light Show 
 
 Caihong may not have used just its feathers for showing off, notes University of Edinburgh paleontologist Steve Brusatte, who reviewed the study before publication. 
 
 “Its plumage was a shiny rainbow of iridescent colors … but it didn't stop there,” he says. “It also had a funky crest of bone sticking up in front of its eyes, which was probably a display structure as well.” 
 
 View Images The skull of Caihong juji. 
 
 Photograph by The Field Museum 
 
 In addition, Xu says that Caihong’s frond-like tail has asymmetrical feathers, and their short, stiff leading edges would have borne the aerodynamic load of flight. Caihong is now the oldest known animal to have this key adaptation. The iconic bird-like dinosaur Archaeopteryx also has asymmetrical feathers, but it lived ten million years later. 
 
 With Caihong, “who knows what the functions of this large, wide tail were?” says National Geographic explorer Ryan Carney, a University of South Florida biologist who studies Archaeopteryx. “Perhaps it was held up as a dark background to provide contrast against the iridescent head during displays?” 
 
 Clarke, an expert on the origin of birds, says that researchers also can’t yet be sure how Caihong used its iridescent feathers, or whether males or females of the species had different plumage. For that, paleontologists can only hope for further study of the new fossil, and perhaps even more bones from Caihong and other feathered dinosaurs. ||||| While browsing amber markets in Myanmar, scientists discovered the feathers and partial tail of a tiny baby dinosaur that lived some 99 million years ago. 
 
 The find, described in the journal Current Biology, offers a rare window onto the structure and organization of dinosaur feathers — one that could help shed new light on their evolution. 
 
 Scientists have long studied feathers that pop up in the fossil record in part because they want to understand the origins of birds. Birds are thought to be the only living descendants of dinosaurs — and questions of how and when their ancestors first developed flight (and the feathers that enabled it) remain confounding mysteries. 
 
 In recent years, paleontologists have also realized that many dinosaurs were not scaly (a la Jurassic Park) but feathered like birds. However, their plumage’s original purpose (for example, for insulation or for camouflage) remains up for debate. Researchers want to understand the origin of feathers, as well as figure out how they eventually evolved for flight. 
 
 But there are limits to what they can learn from studying feathers in isolation, without seeing how they were positioned and organized on the body — and without knowing which species the feathers came from. And those preserved plumes found with fossil skeletons are typically compressed flat in the rock, which makes it difficult to know what the animal looked like in three dimensions. 
 
 Scientists have discovered the partial tail and feathers of a 99-million-year-old baby dinosaur covered in feathers. (R.C McKellar / Royal Saskatchewan Museum) 
 
 This new fossil, encased in amber, solves all of those issues. Co-lead author Lida Xing of the China University of Geosciences discovered the fossil at an amber market in Myanmar last year. Because of its bushy appearance, the seller believed the tail to be some kind of trapped plant — but Xing believed differently and asked the Dexu Institute of Paleontology to purchase it. 
 
 “It wasn’t until Lida took a close look at it that he realized there were feathers coming off the side of the little filaments running through the amber,” said co-lead author Ryan McKellar, a paleontologist with the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Regina, Canada. “That’s when the real fun began, from a research standpoint.” 
 
 Amber is a paleontologist’s best friend for many reasons: Among them, it insulates the fossil from chemical alteration by the environment and helps to preserve it in three dimensions. 
 
 “Amber is like nature’s plastic,” McKellar said. “It seals in a lot of information at the same time it’s basically drying out a lot of inclusions that end up in the resin.” 
 
 Cheung Chung-tat and Liu Yi A reconstruction of the sparrow-sized coelurosaur. A reconstruction of the sparrow-sized coelurosaur. (Cheung Chung-tat and Liu Yi) 
 
 Xing, McKellar and colleagues CT-scanned the tail through the amber, studying its microscopic structure. 
 
 The partial tail, which probably belonged to a coelurosaur about the size of a sparrow, consists of eight full vertebra surrounded by highly preserved feathers. In birds, tailbones are fused together in what’s known as a pygostyle, which is why scientists think this one must have come from a non-avialan dinosaur. 
 
 “This flexible tail isn’t something that you see in modern birds, so it restricts you to a group of dinosaurs that are outside of archaeopteryx and modern birds,” McKellar said. “You have to be dealing with something lower down in the evolutionary tree. And this means you’re firmly in dinosaur territory, as opposed to bird territory.” 
 
 Unlike birds, the dinosaur’s feathers had an underdeveloped main stem, or rachis. The top feathers were dark and those on the underside were light, so it may have been used for camouflage or signaling, McKellar said. 
 
 There are limits to what this particular fossil can reveal about feathered dinosaurs, the scientist added – but it does show that more such fossils might well exist, mistaken for bushy plants or other debris, just waiting to be found. His colleagues, he added, were continuing to search amber markets, hoping to get lucky once again. 
 
 CAPTION Revelers joined community members and indigenous leaders from around the world at the Symbiosis Gathering in Big Summit Prairie, Ore., to mark the Great American Eclipse. Revelers joined community members and indigenous leaders from around the world at the Symbiosis Gathering in Big Summit Prairie, Ore., to mark the Great American Eclipse. CAPTION Revelers joined community members and indigenous leaders from around the world at the Symbiosis Gathering in Big Summit Prairie, Ore., to mark the Great American Eclipse. Revelers joined community members and indigenous leaders from around the world at the Symbiosis Gathering in Big Summit Prairie, Ore., to mark the Great American Eclipse. CAPTION This motion graphic shows highlights of Cassini's missions from 2004-2017. This motion graphic shows highlights of Cassini's missions from 2004-2017. CAPTION NASA employees, friends and family attend a watch party at Caltech for Cassini's final signal back to Earth. NASA employees, friends and family attend a watch party at Caltech for Cassini's final signal back to Earth. CAPTION Eclipse chasers will tell you that seeing a total eclipse will change your life. But keep in mind, a total eclipse is a fleeting phenomenon. (Aug. 15, 2017) (Sign up for our free video newsletter here http://bit.ly/2n6VKPR) Eclipse chasers will tell you that seeing a total eclipse will change your life. But keep in mind, a total eclipse is a fleeting phenomenon. (Aug. 15, 2017) (Sign up for our free video newsletter here http://bit.ly/2n6VKPR) CAPTION The Great American Eclipse The Great American Eclipse 
 
 amina.khan@latimes.com 
 
 Follow @aminawrite on Twitter for more science news and "like" Los Angeles Times Science & Health on Facebook. 
 
 MORE SCIENCE NEWS 
 
 Scientists find antibody that hinders the spread of certain cancer cells 
 
 Cassini sends back intriguing pictures of Saturn from new ring-grazing orbit 
 
 On average, people born in the U.S. in 2015 will live 36.5 days less than those born in 2014
– Scientists are now saying there may have been "a more colorful Jurassic World than we previously imagined," thanks to the recent discovery of a fossil in China's Hebei province. Reuters reports that a closer look at the "exquisitely preserved," almost completely intact fossil of a crow-like dinosaur that lived about 161 million years ago revealed that Caihong juji had luminous, brilliantly hued feathers that closely resembled those of hummingbirds. The study in the journal Nature Communications documenting the find explains that "Caihong" means "rainbow" in Mandarin. Scientists think the colorful plumage, which appeared to have covered the bony-crested creature's head, neck, and chest areas, may have kept the dinosaur warm, as well as attracted potential mates; National Geographic compares it to peacock feathers. So how were researchers able to tell what color feathers the creature had from preserved bones? They used high-tech microscopes able to home in on 66 sites on the fossil, detecting tiny cell structures called melanosomes, which underlie pigmentation. Which colors they led to can be found by their shapes, and the melanosomes in Caihong were long and flat like pancakes—similar to those found in hummingbirds, which boast iridescent plumage. Although they can't pick out from the Pantone wheel Caihong's exact colors, researchers say the creature likely sported feathers with a "rainbow glimmer." Study co-author Xing Zu tells National Geographic that Caihong was a predator that spent its days gliding from tree to tree. And "glide" is the operative word, as this dinosaur likely didn't fly: Its feathers were located on its tail, not on its wings like birds, Discover notes. (A study postulated that nearly all dinosaurs had feathers.)