By examining dinosaur bones and reconstructing their skeletons, scientists have a pretty good idea of what dinosaurs looked like. But what might they have sounded like? I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.
Kristin Junette is with the Biology Department at Montana State University. Working with bio-acoustician Bernie Krause, she’s been trying to come up with examples of how a dinosaur’s voice might have sounded. We’re listening to some of their simulations in the background. To begin the investigation, Ms. Junette considered both the dinosaur’s anatomy and its habitat.
“We look at the preserved bones and the bones can tell us a lot about the shape the animal takes by looking at muscle scars and things like that. We then have to compare that with what we know about living organisms and once we’ve got an idea of what living organisms do with their parts and pieces of bodies, then we fit in how the physics of sound actually works. And, the sounds work in different environments and many different ways
“Living animals want to take the best advantage of how sound travels within their habitat because they want their voices to be heard against any background noise. Certain sounds, therefore, have been found to be predominant in certain types of habitats. And it appears that these are the signals that do the best in such circumstances.”
By looking at its anatomy and probable habitat, Junette and Krause came up with this simulation of the sound of a duck billed dinosaur.
Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. Additional funding for this series has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.