News Brief: Dinosaurs Who Toot Their Own Horns

Vertebrate Paleontologist Jason Bourke, Ph.D., assistant professor at NYITCOM at Arkansas State University (Jonesboro), has news about dinosaurs that may be music to your ears. In an article on LiveScience, he details his new research examining how different species of duck-billed dinosaurs (such as Parasaurolophus, pictured above) “tooted” different notes from their crests. The article quotes Bourke as saying, “The results suggest the unnamed duckbill bellowed at 56 hertz, meaning the sound fell between the low-pitched bawl of the already studied Parasaurolophus walkeri (48 hertz) and the higher-pitched hoot of P. cyrtocristatus (75 hertz).”

Bourke and his colleagues presented their findings at the 78th annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in October and plan to publish the research soon. Stay tuned for more on this discovery in The Box, and remember, the next time you cross paths with a duck-billed dinosaur, honk your horn.