00:03What did dinosaurs sound like?
00:05If you're a 90s kid, something like this no doubt comes to mind.
00:12But it turns out the gigantic creatures that lumbered around the planet hundreds of millions of years ago
00:16likely didn't sound very ferocious at all.
00:19Researchers discovered a particularly well-preserved ankylosaur in the Gobi Desert Basin way back in 2005.
00:24And that creature had fossilized bones in its throat.
00:27Bones that they believed were used for making sounds.
00:30Flash forward to 2023 and paleontologists from the Hokkaido University Museum in Japan
00:34and the American Museum of Natural History now believe those bones were a voice box.
00:39When examined by animal vocal experts,
00:41they found that these structures are quite similar to both modern-day reptiles and modern-day birds.
00:46Meaning rather than terrifying roars,
00:48at least these dinosaurs were more likely to chirp like birds or make sounds like present-day crocodiles.
00:53Of course, the researchers say they can't be 100% sure of what anything that's been dead for millions of
00:58years sounded like.
00:59But they add the diverse sounds these complex structures could have made would likely have been
01:02related to courtship, parental call, predator defense, and territorial calls.
01:08...
01:11We'll be here to tomorrow, please.
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