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In the new report published Wednesday in Nature, they write that they found a red-brown pigment called protoporphyrin IX and a blue-green one called biliverdin5 in both modern birds and in a group of dinosaurs that were ancestors of modern birds — Eumaniraptorans, including favorites like velociraptor.

Using Raman spectroscopy, a nondestructive analytic tool, Wiemann looked for the molecular signatures of protoporphyrin and biliverdin in the oviraptor eggshells.

Another molecule, protoporphyrin, provides the rusts and browns.

A few years ago, Mark Hauber, an ornithologist at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his colleagues designed a protocol to examine biliverdin and protoporphyrin in eggshells, including shells from a giant extinct bird called the moa.

In the eumaniraptorans, the researchers found evidence of a blue-green pigment called biliverdin and a red-brown pigment called protoporphyrin IX structurally integrated into the crystal matrix of the eggshell, as they are with birds.