Did dinosaurs make sounds?
Modern examples of closed-mouth vocalizations include crocodilian growls and ostrich booms. As a result, scientists reasoned that many dinosaurs did not perform open-mouth vocalizations, but could have generated closed-mouth vocalizations instead.
Birds and reptiles can feel all of those basic, instinctual feelings. So, we can imagine that dinosaurs did as well. Though we cannot really define feelings like love or care physiologically, it's difficult to believe that creatures who feel pain and excitation would not have any capacity for them.
According to the new research, dino sounds may be what scientists call “closed-mouth vocalizations.” Unlike the high-pitched chirps and tweets from the open beaks of songbirds, the closed-mouth sounds are low, throaty whooshes of air.
While many scientists doubt that dinosaurs used it to make roaring sounds, they suggest that air passing through a vocal organ (or even the animal's esophagus) could have been used to make growls, hisses, or honks.
Scientists already know that an asteroid—or perhaps a comet—struck Earth off Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. The resulting 110 miles/80 kilometers wide Chicxulub crater is thought to have caused a decades-long “impact winter” that killed the dinosaurs.
Due to certain size constraints, the fearsome Tyrannosaurus Rex was unable to, say, take a mate into his arms. Instead, he was left with his nose, which out-extended his arms, to perform such "pre-copulatory play," as the scientists said.
Undoubtedly, dinosaurs possessed the highly conserved pain systems found in vertebrates which foster protective behaviour while fractures mend. Evidence of localized warming and suggestions of warm-bloodedness produced faster healing than for ectothermic vertebrates.
Just this week, paleontologists described a long-necked dinosaur as big as two elephants with a brain the size of a lime. The smartest dinosaurs were about as smart as birds (which, after all, are descendants of dinosaurs), and the smartest dinosaurs then were not as smart as the smartest birds today, such as crows.
Scientists aren't sure what T. rex sounded like, but the best guesses are based on the dinosaur's closest living relatives: crocodiles and birds. A 2016 study suggested that T. rex probably didn't roar, but most likely cooed, hooted, and made deep-throated booming sounds like the modern-day emu.
Mike concludes his series on the Hadrosaurs or Duck Billed Dinosaurs by talking about the loudest dinosaurs to have existed: Saurolophus, Parasaurolophus, Lambeosaurus and Corythosaurus, dinosaurs that used skin flaps or bony tubes to make sounds that could be heard from miles away.
How did dinosaurs hear?
Yes, dinosaurs did have ears, although they likely didn't protrude. Nerve canals within a dinosaur's skull allowed the creature to hear, as did the inclusion of a stapes (in some species), an inner ear bone that sends vibrations throughout the eardrum.
There is no evidence to suggest that T-Rex's forelimbs were wings. Many T-Rex ancestors had forelimbs proportionally longer and with functionality more akin to arms than vestigial wings. Although later maniraptorans and dromaeosaurs retained their quill knobs and wings there is no evidence theropods like T-Rex did so.
Not only did the dinosaurs look real, but they sounded real, each dinosaur having its own array of chirps, bellows, hoots, and roars.
Scientists say that rather than roaring, dinosaurs likely made cooing or mumbling sounds similar to those made by pigeons or ostriches.
Dying Triceratops
The triceratops sounds were from dozens of cows from George Lucas' film site, Skywalker Ranch, where Rydstrom works. As for the unforgettable sound of the dying triceratops, though, Rydstrom turned to a simple, homemade device: a cardboard tube with a spring in it.
A 2016 study suggested that T. rex probably didn't roar, but most likely cooed, hooted, and made deep-throated booming sounds like the modern-day emu.