In popular culture, predatory dinosaurs are typically shown giving off a fearsome roar before unleashing carnage on their unsuspecting victims, but a new study indicates that they may have actually sounded quite different.
According to researchers from Midwestern University in Arizona, the University of Texas at Austin, some dinosaurs would have mumbled or cooed with closed mouths, similar to how many modern-day bird species can emit sounds with their beaks shut tightly.
Results of the study show that closed-mouth vocalization has evolved at least 16 times in archosaurs, a group that includes birds, dinosaurs, and crocodiles. Interestingly, only animals with a relatively large body size (about the size of a dove or larger) use closed-mouth vocalization behavior.
Closed-mouth vocalizations, the study authors explained, are typically emitted through the skin in the neck region while the beak remains closed. Birds produce these noises by pushing the air which precipitates sound production into an esophageal pouch instead of through an open beak, producing a call that tends to be quieter and lower in pitch than open-mouth vocalizations
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113414987/dinosaurs-vocalization-071216/
Study: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/evo.12988/abstract
According to researchers from Midwestern University in Arizona, the University of Texas at Austin, some dinosaurs would have mumbled or cooed with closed mouths, similar to how many modern-day bird species can emit sounds with their beaks shut tightly.
Results of the study show that closed-mouth vocalization has evolved at least 16 times in archosaurs, a group that includes birds, dinosaurs, and crocodiles. Interestingly, only animals with a relatively large body size (about the size of a dove or larger) use closed-mouth vocalization behavior.
Closed-mouth vocalizations, the study authors explained, are typically emitted through the skin in the neck region while the beak remains closed. Birds produce these noises by pushing the air which precipitates sound production into an esophageal pouch instead of through an open beak, producing a call that tends to be quieter and lower in pitch than open-mouth vocalizations
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113414987/dinosaurs-vocalization-071216/
Study: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/evo.12988/abstract