It is the first time that researchers studying fossils have come to know about extinct animals' true colors. The scientists researched on two species of bats, Palaeochiropteryx and Hassianycteris. The species of bats lived between the Carboniferous and Miocene eras, 300 million to 20 million years back, along a lake in a tropical forest in Germany.

The study was published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. During the study, scientists from the University of Bristol and Virginia Tech examined bat fossils that were preserved in such a brilliant way that they retained melanosome structures.

Previously, skeptics used to believe that melanosomes in other well-preserved fossils were only bacteria. But molecular paleobiologist Jakob Vinther of Britian's University of Bristol along with his team have given confirmation for the first time ever that the structures had melansome leftovers, not bacteria, after the detailed study of microchemistry of the fossils.

Melansomes are quite exciting because they have melanin, the pigment responsible for giving certain colors to skin, fur or hair, and the size and shape of melanins can be used by scientists in determining their original color.

In a University of Bristol press release, Dr. Vinther explained, "This means that the correlation of melanin color to shape is an ancient invention, which we can use to easily determine color from fossils by simply looking at the melanosomes shape".

"For complex animal life, color is a factor in how individuals recognize and respond to others, determine friend or foe, and find mates," said MIT geobiologist Roger Summons, in a Virginia Tech press release. "This research provides another thread to understand how ancient life evolved. Color recognition was an important part of that process, and it goes far back in the history of animals."

"I think we're just scratching the surface in our ability to extract information like this from the fossil record," adds Colleary. "As technology continues to advance, we'll keep finding information in fossils that we don't even know is there today."