A new dinosaur species, Pulaosaurus qinglong, was discovered in China, with well-preserved throat bones suggesting it may have chirped like modern birds 163 million years ago.
Why it matters: This discovery pushes back the origins of birdsong by millions of years and challenges traditional perceptions of dinosaur sounds and behaviors.
The details:
- The nearly complete fossil, measuring 28 inches (72 centimeters), was found in northeastern China’s Hebei Province.
- The fossil includes well-preserved throat bones, providing unprecedented insight into the vocal capabilities of dinosaurs.
- Pulaosaurus’ vocal structures appear similar to another dinosaur, Pinacosaurus, which may have been flexible enough to produce birdlike chirps and tweets.
- This is only the second instance of a dinosaur found with preserved laryngeal structures, the first being the ankylosaur Pinacosaurus, which lived millions of years after Pulaosaurus.
The presence of similar vocal structures in such distinct species indicates that dinosaurs’ ancient ancestors may have been quite chirpy, suggesting the origins of birdsong could lie in creatures that lived more than 230 million years ago.
What they’re saying:
- “Even when you have a dinosaur skeleton preserved, you don’t always have these isolated bones preserved with other skull elements. They’re very thin bones, very delicate and hard to preserve.” – Xing Xu, paleontologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and an author of the paper
- “We hope that in the future we can find more specialized structures relating to sound so we can do further research on how these dinosaurs produced their voices.” – Xing Xu
What’s next: More research and reanalysis of vocal anatomy within non-avian dinosaurs are needed to improve the accuracy of identifying curated specimens and better understand how dinosaurs sounded.
