Dinosaurs May Have Cooed Instead of Roared, Scientists Find

Not only did some dinosaurs have feathers, but according to new research the prehistoric creatures may have emitted coos or mumbles instead of mammalian roars.

After a comprehensive review of vocal data from bird and crocodile species, scientists from universities in Arizona, Texas, Utah and Canada found that dinosaur sounds may be what they call a “closed-mouth vocalization.” According to the research published in Evolution, a similar example would be the coos of a dove, in which sounds are emitted through the skin and neck area while the beak is kept closed.

“Looking at the distribution of closed-mouth vocalization in birds that are alive today could tell us how dinosaurs vocalized,” Chad Eliason from The University of Texas Jackson School of Geosciences and the study’s co-author said in a statement. “Our results 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.”