Original photo by Alvaro Reyes/ Unsplash
If asked what a dinosaur sounded like, many people would likely recall the roaring T. rex of Jurassic Park. However, that earth-shaking bellow seems to be a case of Hollywood exercising some creative liberty. While we don't know what these reptiles really sounded like, since they mostly died out some 66 million years ago, scientists at least have some reasonable ideas based on the anatomical structures of well-preserved fossils, combined with studies of the dinosaurs and their close relatives that exist today.
Oops, incorrect!
It's a fibAlthough it was long believed that non-avian dinosaurs lacked the flying capabilities of early birds and Pterosaurs, newer research has shown that other small, feathered dinosaurs evolved the ability for powered flight multiple times.
Yes, dinosaurs do still exist, in the form of birds, which branched off from non-avian dinosaurs around 160 million years ago. Although birds mainly produce noises via a soft-tissue organ called the syrinx, which has yet to be uncovered from a non-avian dinosaur fossil, many of our feathered friends also engage in closed-mouth vocalization, in which sounds are pushed out from a pouch in the neck area. Another modern animal that utilizes closed-mouth vocalization is the crocodile, which just so happens to share a common ancestor with dinosaurs. Given the family ties, it's logical to conclude that some dinosaurs emitted something resembling the cooing of a dove, the booming of an ostrich, or the rumbling of a croc. Since larger animals with longer vocal cords produce lower frequency sounds, it's also likely that enormous sauropods like Brachiosaurus delivered noises that, to our ears, would dip into an octave of infrasound — felt and not heard. On the other hand, the ear structures of the dinosaur-crocodile predecessor indicate a sensitivity to high-pitched noises, possibly the chirping of babies.
The field continues to evolve as new information comes to light; the recent discovery of the first known fossilized dinosaur larynx, from an ankylosaur, suggests these creatures were able to modify noises in a bird-like way despite the lack of a syrinx. And none of this even touches on the sound capabilities of hadrosaurs like Parasaurolophus, which almost certainly delivered a distinct call from the air passages that funneled through a conspicuous head crest. All in all, while a roar from a Jurassic-bred beast may have been the work of a Hollywood studio, there’s no movie magic needed to recognize that Earth’s prehistoric hills were alive with all sorts of reptilian sounds of music.
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The first dinosaur to be named was ______.
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The first dinosaur to be named was Megalosaurus.
Some musicians are using dinosaur skull replicas as instruments.
Given the ever-increasing understanding of dinosaur sounds, it’s appropriate that a few experimental musicians have found ways to make music out of these potentially noisy monsters from yesteryear. One such artist is Southern Methodist University assistant professor Courtney Brown, who initially attached a mouthpiece and a synthetic larynx to the replica of a hadrosaur skull for an interactive exhibit, before recording the sounds produced by this creation alongside other instruments and vocals for her Dinosaur Choir project. Similarly, composers Anže Rozman and Kara Talve devised replica skull-based instruments as part of their assignment to score the Apple TV+ series Prehistoric Planet. Thanks to their atmospheric arrangements on innovations including the Triceratone, which fuses an electric double bass with a triceratops skull, and the Fat Rex, a combined frame drum and cello fingerboard topped with a 3D-printed T. rex skull, the Rozman-Talve-led team claimed Best Original Score for a Documentary Series honors at the 2023 Hollywood Music in Media Awards.
Tim Ott has written for sites including Biography.com, History.com, and MLB.com, and is known to delude himself into thinking he can craft a marketable screenplay.
