A fossilized ankylosaur voice box reveals that these beasts may have sported a far more sophisticated vocal range than scientists originally thought.
The"extremely rare" discovery of an 80 million-year-old fossilized voice box that belonged to an armored dinosaur reveals that the ancient beast may have sounded more birdlike than experts previously thought, new research suggests.
Now, a new analysis, published Feb. 15 in the journal Communications Biology , suggests that the creature's vocalizations may have been far more subtle and melodious than its previously assumed crocodilian grunts, hisses, rumbles and roars. "Our study finds the larynx of Pinacosaurus is kinetic and large, similar to birds that make a variety of sounds," study first author Junki Yoshida , a paleontologist at the Fukushima Museum in Japan, told Live Science.
Most animals that produce sounds do so through specially adapted organs connected to the lungs by the windpipe. In crocodiles, mammals and amphibians, the larynx — a hollow tube located at the top of the windpipe and crammed with folds of resonating tissues — is adapted to produce sounds. But in birds, the syrinx — a two-piped structure resting near the lungs, at the bottom of the windpipe — creates the foundations for complex melodies.
This anatomical setup likely meant that the ancient herbivore was capable of making a large array of sounds — including rumbles, grunts, roars and possibly even chirps — while also bellowing them out across vast distances, the researchers said. —Crystal-stuffed dinosaur eggs the size of cannonballs discovered in ChinaThat said, it's unlikely that ankylosaurs chirped or warbled like modern-day birds, mainly because they were much bigger and had very different vocal mechanisms.
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