What did dinosaurs sound like?

FOR MANY DINOSAURS, WE JUST DON’T know. Whether an animal makes noise depends on factors like diet and social interactions. Did T. rex roar like a lion? While it stayed silent and stealthy as a hunter, it may also have needed to scare away scavengers trying to steal a kill or advertise its presence to a potential mate. But vocal communication would have been very useful for species living in herds. One family certainly made sounds: hadrosaurs. These duck-billed dinosaurs had breathing tubes passing through a crest made of nasal bones. This is prominent on Parasaurolophus (‘like ridged-lizard’), whose long crest sweeps back along the top of its head. In the 1980s, palaeontologist David Weishampel followed the path of airflow through a skull and predicted that the hadrosaur sounded like…

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Bbc Wildlife (Digital) - 1 Issue, August 2024

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