Did they chirp or growl? Scientists have speculated what sounds dinosaurs could have made

Did they chirp or growl?  Scientists have speculated what sounds dinosaurs could have made



Usually, in movies, the sounds of dinosaurs are made to resemble the roar of lions, but, most likely, these giants did not sound like that. Scientists from Japan and the United States studied the fossilized larynx of ankylosaurus and concluded that dinosaurs could communicate with sounds similar to bird sounds. Scientists have stated this in a new study published in the journal Nature (Communications Biology), reports Science Alert. The team studied the fossilized larynx of a non-avian ankylosaur dinosaur, Pinacosaurus grangeri, found by archaeologists in Mongolia in 2005. Junki Yoshida, a paleontologist at the Fukushima Museum in Japan, emphasizes that the larynx is an amazing find because this organ is rarely preserved as a fossil. Read also: How did dinosaurs have sex? In the photo, the cricoid is marked in purple, and the arytenoid is in green. Illustration: Tatsuya Shinmura The authors of the study were scientists from the Hokkaido University Museum, the Fukushima Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. To find out what sounds dinosaurs could make, the team relied on the dinosaurs’ evolutionary relatives – birds and crocodiles. In extinct and living relatives of crocodiles, sound is produced by the larynx. The larynx is a hollow tube located in the upper part that allows the formation of sounds when air passes through the vocal cords and they vibrate at certain frequencies. So mammals, amphibians and reptiles create sound with the help of the respiratory tract. But birds are an exception. They have another voice organ – the syrinx, located at the base of the trachea. Some birds have a highly developed syrinx, which allows them to make more complex sounds and sing. Dr. Yoshida and his colleagues determined the dimensions of two parts of the dinosaur’s larynx that could have supported the muscles involved in opening and reshaping the airways. “Although a unique avian voice source (the syrinx) has never been found in non-avian dinosaurs, Pinacosaurus was able to use avian vocalizations due to its large larynx,” the article states. The larynx of Pinacosaurus consists of a cricoid and an arytenoid, as in non-avian reptiles (the cricoid is marked in purple in the photo, and the arytenoid is green). The team compared their proportions with the larynxes of dozens of reptiles, including crocodiles, geckos and turtles. In general, the larynx of ankylosaurus was larger than that of other animals. That is, this dinosaur could open its airways wide to let out loud screams that could be heard from a great distance, Yoshida explains. Another part of the larynx, a relatively long pair of bones, may have allowed the windpipe to change shape to modify sounds. Thanks to this, ankylosaurs could talk like birds, researchers say. There is also the possibility that dinosaurs made sounds similar to chirps and purrs, says Dr. Yoshida. “People might assume that dinosaurs chirped like skylarks. They probably didn’t, but they may have had a wider range of sounds than we can imagine,” paleontologist Victoria Arbor, who was not involved in the study, told The New York Times. research The paleontologist believes that dinosaurs could also sound like crocodiles: the vocal repertoire of these reptiles is a deep growl and hiss. “It can be assumed that dinosaurs made sounds similar to crocodilians. This is the basic anatomy they were working with. And then birds developed additional ways of reproducing sounds to make them in a more subtle way,” adds Victoria Arbor. The authors of the study still cannot say exactly what the Pinacosaurus’ voice sounded like. However, scientists believe that the vocalization of dinosaurs was associated with courtship, parental calls, protection from predators and territorial challenges. It is impossible to draw definitive conclusions about the sounds of dinosaurs, but the possibility remains that these giant mouth-watering creatures could have grunted or chirped. It will be recalled that scientists previously found out what happened on the last day of dinosaurs’ life on Earth. Read also: What would modern dinosaurs be like if they did not die out?



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