Growling dinosaurs in Jurassic Park have instilled fear in generations of children.
But would these giant reptiles be so scary if they didn’t growl at all, but chirped instead?
Researchers in China have discovered a complete skeleton of an unknown dinosaur species, including its voice box.
The find provides the first real clue as to what the extinct creatures sounded like.
The two-foot-long dinosaur species, Pulaosaurus qinglong, has been named after Pulao, which is a small, loud-screaming dragon from Chinese mythology.
The animal’s fossils are so well-preserved that rare fossilised soft tissue has also been dug up, including structures in the larynx, or voice box.
This is where scientists stumbled upon something unexpected.
The dinosaur’s larynx, with leaf-shaped, cartilage-like components, closely resembles those of modern birds.
This suggests that Pulaosaurus could chirp, whistle, or even call, and not roar.
The tiny dinosaur species were herbivores, only 28 inches long and walked on two legs.
Their remains, more than 150 million years old, were discovered in the fossil hotspot of Yanliao Biota in northeastern China.
We won’t ever know exactly what the Pulaosaurus sounded like, though.
Researchers explained: ‘Due to the compression of the lower jaw of Pulaosaurus, its exact width is unknown, making acoustic calculations impossible.’
But the discovery backs up growing evidence of bird-like voice boxes among dinosaurs.
In 2023, the fossilised larynx of a different 16-foot armoured dinosaur, the Pinacosaurus, showed that extinct animal also chirped.
The two species are only distantly related and separated by about 90 million years of evolution. This raises the possibility that chirping dinosaurs were not such a rare thing.
Why is this discovery so rare? Researchers argue that the fragile voice box structures don’t fossilise very often.
They are also perhaps being wrongly classified as other parts of the throat.
Despite going extinct around 66 million years ago, dinosaurs continue to unlock mysteries – even about human health.
Scientists are hopeful they could develop new cancer cures thanks to dinosaur remains with tumours.
Cancer experts at Anglia Ruskin University are studying tumours found in the fossil of a herbivorous Telmatosaurus transsylvanicus – known as a ‘marsh lizard’ – as it could help better understand the disease in humans.
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