The iconic roar of the Tyrannosaurus rex is one of the most recognisable sounds in cinema, but it is pure Hollywood fiction. The truth is, we have very little idea what dinosaurs actually sounded like, as the soft tissues of the vocal tract rarely fossilise.
A fascinating interdisciplinary project, the “Dinosaur Choir,” now aims to fill that 70-million-year-old silence by recreating the acoustic anatomy of these creatures. Led by researcher Courtney Brown, the team started with hadrosaurs like the Corythosaurus, known for the hollow, ornate crests connected to their nasal passages. These structures are believed to have acted as complex resonance chambers.
Using CT scans of fossilised skulls, the team 3D prints precise replicas of these crests and airways. In the project’s interactive version, sensors capture a user’s breath or voice vibrations. These signals are then converted into electrical impulses that drive a digital vocal box, with a camera tracking the user’s mouth to modulate the sound in real-time. The result is an instrument that allows a person to “voice” a dinosaur, producing sounds that range from deep rumbles to resonant calls, filtered through the physically modelled vocal tract of the animal.
In the last few years, palaeontologists have found the first-ever fossilised dinosaur larynx and other rare throat bones. These findings suggest that many dinosaurs had active control over their glottis, much like modern birds, enabling them to produce sophisticated, modulated, and repetitive sounds, which are far more complex than simple roars.
Take a look at the Dinosaur Choir presentation available in Youtube.