For many dinosaurs, we just don’t know what they sounded like, but for some dinosaurs we have a good idea.
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.
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One dinosaur 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 a wind instrument specifically, a hook-shaped trumpet called a crumhorn.
Life-size models built of plastic and cardboard suggested adults made a low parping noise or booming sounds that travelled long distances, while babies and juveniles (with less- developed tubes) produced high-pitched toots or tweets.
In 1996, researchers used computed tomography (CT) scans of skulls to reconstruct Parasaurolophus’ sounds, which you can listen to below.
Top image: Parasaurolophus ('near-crested lizard') © Getty images
