Interestingly, in the case of these two, we can roughly determine the wrinkling and color by analyzing melanosomes preserved in fossilized feather impressions.
Microraptor was jet black with a metallic sheen, like modern ravens or crows. So the reconstruction is correct.
It was similar with Archaeopteryx, although it also had a touch of white like a magpie, so the author went a bit overboard here.
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Since we're in the christmas spirit, I'll share this story:
When I read that we learnt the colour of Anchiornis early in the 2010s, I cried. Straight up cried in front of the screen. In every book and documentary that I grew up with in the 90s and 2000s they told us with extreme confidence that colour was going to be a complete mystery. They could be green and grey boring lizards, or walking rainbows, we were never going to know. Then I stumbled upon those news. I couldn't believe that science managed to figure that out, to know the colour of some dinosaurs.
For you younglings that were born this millennium, you cannot fathom how it is that in a snapshot of time we went from dinosaurs are agile > birds are dinosaurs > Archaeopteryx was black and Sinosauropteryx was reddish brown.
When you hear palaeontologists say that we're in a golden age for palaeontology, they truly mean it.
This was lovely to read. Thank you for adding it.
Don’t forget diplodocus, we know bits and pieces of color from melanosomes found on skin impressions
So what colour was it then?
There’s evidence of both black melanosomes, and strangely enough, melanosomes that correspond to iridescence in birds. Though the animal probably wasn’t colored like a starling or hummingbird, with a more brown pigment, one can imagine the possibilities.