The protagonist of today's story is a dinosaur of the duck-billed dragon family who seems to have been seen somewhere, the parachlorosaurus.
It was a huge plant-eating dinosaur with a length of up to 10 meters,
If you look at it from the looks alone, it can also rank second among all the terrible dinosaurs.
In particular, the "crown" extending from the top of its head is 1 meter long, which is the most obvious feature of its difference in appearance from other dinosaurs.
But the head of the vice-ctenophora always has a crown that looks like a hindrance, why is this?
Well, the story about the crown of the vice-ctenophore. Let me share it with you.
In 1922, Canadian paleontologist William Parks discovered a strange dinosaur skull and partial skeleton fossil in the Canadian province of Abulda, named walkeri, meaning "almost a lizard with a crown."
In the field of dinosaurs, as paraceaurus became known, many paleontologists were curious to know its use after seeing the crown ornament growing on its head.
Interestingly, from the 1930s to the 1960s, because the mouth of the paraceaurus looked like a duck and the skin on its front paws looked like webbing, it was mistaken for the dinosaur that lived underwater.
So, at the time, the American vertebrate paleontologist Alfred Sherwood Romer believed that the crown of the paracycosaurus was used as a diving breathing apparatus. Dr. Romer said: "The crown and the nose are connected together, coupled with the fact that the inside of the crown is hollow, when there is a predator like the Tyrannosaurus rex, the paraceaurus can run into the water, and then the crown can be used as a diving breathing apparatus to breathe in the water." ”
Later, there were many similar hypotheses.
Charles Mortram Sternberg and Dr. Edwin Harris Colbert believe that the crown of the paraceaurus can be used as an air storage room, allowing it to spend more time in the water.
But as you might expect, these assumptions are quickly overturned.
First, it is the assumption of storing as air.
The 10-meter-long paracephalic dragon is out of proportion to the crown ornament, which is only 1 meter long, and if the crown ornament is used to store air, it will not have much effect in water.
Again, hypotheses about submersible respirators.
The skin on the front paws of the paraceaurus is not webbing, it has been confirmed that this dinosaur once lived on land, if the parachlorosaurus used the crown ornament as a diving breathing apparatus when diving, then the end of the crown ornament must have a small hole, so as to exchange with the external air,
However, in the crown ornaments found in the fossils of Paracus ctenophora, no small holes were found, and the end of the crown ornaments was blocked.
In this way, the hypothesis of the diving respirator was completely abandoned.
After that, a lot of assumptions came up.
Austrian paleontologist Othenio Abel believes that crowns are used as weapons in intraspecies fights.
John Ostrom believed that the crown had an extended area of the olfactory epithelium, which could assist their sense of smell, etc., although there were many different hypotheses, but there was no conclusive evidence for all this. Therefore, it has not been accepted by the academic community.
So, where is the crown ornament of the vice-chestnut dragon used?
The use of crown ornaments for the duck-billed dragon family began to be released in 1931 by Carl Wiman's hypothesis.
His hypothesis sounded absurd at the time, and he thought that the crown of the paracephalus was an amplifier used to improve the sound.
This hypothesis has long gone unnoticed.
In 1981, dr. David B. Weishampel's research brought carl Wiyman's hypothesis back into the spotlight. Dr. Wei Xianmu Pei believes that because the crown of the vice-ctenophore is empty, it is used to amplify the sound. Just like wind instruments, when a swan makes a sound, it increases the sound by a gap in the abdominal bone, and the inside of the crown of the paracephalus is also empty, which is similar to the principle of amplification of the swan's sound. Also, depending on the size of the space inside the crown of the paracea, the sound of each sub-ctenophore is different.
Subsequently, Dr. Wei Xian Mu Pei analyzed the frequency of the voice of the sub-ctenophorus based on the length and volume of the crown ornament. It turned out that the long crown of the paracephalus could emit 48-240 HZ of audio. It's a bass.
Then, in 1996, paleontologist Tom Williamson and computer modeling expert Carl Diegert experimentally confirmed Dr. Wischen's claims.
They implanted the crown ornament into the computer according to the appearance of the fossil crown of the sub-ctenophora and built a model. Simulation experiments were conducted to inject air into hollow crown ornaments. Surprisingly, the paraceaurus let out a low roar. Sounds like a bass in a wind instrument.
Because the interior of the crown ornament of the paracephalus is hollow, the air inhaled through the nose flows through it, which makes the sound "resonate".
Isn't it surprising that if the sound produced by this is really the sound of a parachuteosaur, then what we hear is the cry of a Cretaceous dinosaur thousands of years ago.
But there is a problem here.
Why does the parachlorium emit audio as low as 30 Hz? And to amplify such a sound?
Dr. Tom Williams argues that low frequencies are wavelength-long, and if the waves are long, the sound can avoid obstacles and travel far away, thereby reducing the danger of the source of the sound being discovered. That is, when parachlorosaurus discovers the appearance of carnivorous dinosaurs, the sound emitted can be transmitted to distant distances, reminding it of warnings of dangers related to its kind, and its own location will not be discovered by carnivorous dinosaurs.
The production of bass is very beneficial to their survival. The crown ornament of the paracephalus was used to send signals, which is currently the most popular theory among dinosaur scholars.
There are also some dinosaurs in the same family as Paraceaurus, who also have different accounts of crown ornaments, such as Lai's dragon, which has different crown ornaments between their peers, so that they can distinguish their companions by crown ornaments.
Recently, there have been some new theories that crown ornaments have the effect of courtship between the opposite sex. Ha ha.
What are your views and different views on this, please write them in the comments section.
I am Xiaoming who entertains myself, welcome your attention, in the future, I will bring you more interesting popular science stories.