File:Pasta-Brontosaurus.jpg

Reason: The paleontological reconstruction of extinct species is, like archaeological or naval reconstructions, partly hypothetical and the public must be warned of this. Indeed, even in the rare cases of conservation in amber, tar, peat or ice, the organic matter is degraded, particularly in terms of its colors: with few exceptions, any paleoartistic reconstruction is therefore approximate and this is the almost all of the color drawings should receive “inaccurate image” banners. According to Guillaume Lecointre of the French National Museum of Natural History, these headbands are nonsense when the colors, the integuments, the presence or absence of feathers, the shape of the pupils or the pronation of the limbs are uncertain and discussed by scientists: it would be more rational to affix “certified reliable image” banners to black-and-white restitutions based on complete fossils and validated by the paleontological community, as Scleromochlus taylori [1]. To represent the most probable colors of an extinct species, the paleontological reconstruction take inspiration from those of species living today in the same living environments.