Tue. Mar 19th, 2024
Source: University of Texas, Austin

It seems like Hollywood might have gotten some information about the dinosaurs wrong. It is no secret that the billion dollar industry loves making movies on the glorious creatures, with films like Jurassic World and Jurassic Park sold out at theaters soon after their open week at the box office. But Hollywood might have gone wrong in portraying the mighty predators as large open-mouthed creatures with their tongues waving all around. A new research was done by the University of Texas, Austin and Chinese Academy of Sciences claim that unlike most creative visualizations of dinosaurs waving their wide and long tongues around like lizards is inaccurate, dinosaurs couldn’t stick their tongues out like lizards. Their tongues were most probably stuck to the base of their mouths, similar to that of alligators.

The research teams compared the structure of the hyoid bones of crocodiles and modern birds with that of the now extinct massive creatures. The hyoid bone is the bone which supports the tongue and studying its structure gave scientists insight on how the tongues of dinosaurs were rooted in their mouths. Zhiheng Li, lead author of the study and associate professor at the Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said, “Tongues are often overlooked. But, they offer key insights into the lifestyles of extinct animals.”

For the research, the scientists focused on the hyoid bones of extinct dinosaurs, pterosaurs and alligators and the structure of the hyoid bone and muscles of modern birds and alligators. In birds, hyoid bones can extend to the tip of the mouth. Since dinosaurs share a lot of characteristics with pterosaurs, crocodiles, and birds, comparing the structure of the hyoid in these species helps scientists figure out how different traits, here the tongue, has evolved over time. High-resolution images of the hyoid bones from about 15 specimens including specimens from diverse birds such as ostriches and ducks were analyzed at the Jackson School’s High-Resolution X-Ray Computed Tomography Facility (UTCT). The results clearly pointed to the fact that the hyoid bones of the dinosaurs resembled the hyoid bones of alligators and crocodiles. So it is safe to say that dinosaurs had a very short and simple hyoid bone and their tongues due to the small size of the same were not very mobile.

By Purnima

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