[slg]

There reminds me of a recent 99% Invisible episode [1] in which they discuss the same topic in the world of dinosaurs. It details how dinosaurs used to be depicted with the goal of only showing the things that we are confident in being true (although what we are confident in obviously changes over time). This results in mostly just greenish-brown skin draped over a muscle structure attached to the fossilized skeletons.

In recent decades there has been a push to show the animals more realistically. The fossilized evidence is studied and compared to the skeletal structure of animals that exist today. Inferences and educated guesses are made from there to project a more realistic but more subjective image of the dinosaurs. We now get much more varied and interesting depictions with feathers, bright coloring, fat deposits, and other features that can neither be completely confirmed or ruled out based on the evidence.

[1] - https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/welcome-to-jurassic-a...

[eagsalazar2]

Hah yeah I just listened to that a couple days ago but didn't make the connection. Probably was rattling around my subconscious when I wrote this question because yeah it is very similar. That's a particularly interesting comparison too because the whole point was that just filling in conservatively based on experience misses a ton a real-world crazy and interesting diversity. The best example was how if we were imagining what elephants looked like just based on their fossilized skeletons, they wouldn't have trunks!