Carotenoids are among the most ubiquitous pigments that produce bright colors in animals, and create most of the vibrant yellows, oranges, and reds in living birds. While they are comparatively well characterized in the plumage of many species, these pigments are also common in avian bare parts (e.g. skin, beak) but their phylogenetic distribution has not been investigated. The instability of carotenoids, coupled with the difficulty of detecting them in skin, makes investigating their distribution difficult. However, insight into this distribution would have implications for understanding the evolutionary pathways of carotenoid acquisition in birds, as well as informing the search for this coloration in extinct dinosaurs. We investigate the expression of carotenoid-consistent color across tissue types in all extant, non-passerine bird species (n= 4,022) and include archelosaur outgroups in a phylogenetic framework. We also investigate how dietary carotenoid intake relates to tissue expression for a subset of birds. We find that expression in skin and non-plumage keratin has a 50% probability in the most recent common ancestor of Archosauria. Consistent with previous studies we recover multiple gains of plumage expression within neognaths. However, including carotenoid-consistent color in bare parts reveals that expression in these areas arises much sooner and more often in crown clade Aves. We also found that diets high in carotenoid content correspond to color expression in more body regions and tissue types. If carotenoid-consistent colorations are to be found in non-avian dinosaurs our results suggest they would most likely be found in bare skin regions with potential for further elaboration into keratinous tissues. However, carotenoids in non-feather structures in birds are less stable and can degrade rapidly, limiting their preservation potential.