New dinosaur discovery could re-write everything we know about how giant beasts communicated

Scientists may have figured out how some dinosaurs speak using CT scans and the fossils and it turns out its different from the Jurassic World roars we’re all used to

For many years, scientists could do little more than speculate about how dinosaurs communicated, because the vocal apparatus of animals is made of soft parts, which means they almost never fossilised.

The sounds seen in films such as Jurassic World could only be imagined based on the canals these animals had for perceiving sounds as well as the way their skulls are. But now, scientists believe that 70 million-year-old Parasaurolophus tubicen might have sounded like a ship’s horn or an Australian didgeridoo thanks to its distinctive cranial ornamentation.

It was demonstrated in a scientific recreation at the New Museum of Natural History and Science. Scientists spent two years researching and simulating what the dinosaur would sound like, digitally reconstructed with the help of computer scientists. Tom Williamson, one of those palaeontologists, told the BBC : “I would describe the sound as otherworldly. It sent chills through my spine.

No one really knows what all the different dinosaurs sounded like over the 180 million years they were around. But using the inner ears and other cranial cavities, scientists have developed theories as to what they sounded like.

In other dinosaur-related news, boffins have made the discovery of a life time – evidence that goblin-like creatures roamed the earth around the same time as dinosaurs.

The bones of this creature were originally found in 2006, but have only just been investigated. The new species has been named Bolg amondol, in reference to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Elvish language. It roughly translates to “mound-headed goblin prince”. The name was given due to the fantasy-like appearance.

“Bolg is a great sounding name. It’s a goblin prince from The Hobbit, and I think of these lizards as goblin-like, especially looking at their skulls,” says Hank Woolley, palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s Dinosaur Institute.

The bones used in the study were merely remains, but the fragments were enough information for Woolley and team to identify the new species – and also figure out where in the evolutionary line it lies.

Bolg is an early type of Monstersauria, a type of lizard that still roams the region today. However, modern day types grow around 50cm, while the goblin prince would have been far bigger

“Three feet tip to tail, maybe even bigger than that, depending on the length of the tail and torso,” said Woolley. “So by modern lizard standards, a very large animal, similar in size to a Savannah monitor lizard, something that you wouldn’t want to mess around with.”

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