(PAIR-uh-SOAR-uh-LOW-fuss)

   Parasaurolophus was a large bipedal to quadrupedal herbivore best known for its large trombone-shaped crest. This hollow crest is thought to have been used as a resonating chamber for making low frequency sounds for communicating with others of its kind. The crest may also have been used for display or for giving it an improved sense of smell.

From The New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science:

   The low trumpeting rumbling through the museum's New Mexico's Seacoast hall is anything but the strains of a brass ensemble warming up. Instead it is a high-tech model, a hypothesis, of the sound of Parasaurolophus (PAIR-uh-SOAR-uh-LOW-fuss), a 75-million-year-old dinosaur from northwestern New Mexico.

Photograph of the skull of the crested hadrosaur Parasaurolophus and computer-generated image

   Dr. Carl Diegert of Sandia National Lab and Dr. Thomas E. Williamson of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque have explored in unprecedented detail and accuracy the potential sound-making ability of the duck-billed dinosaur. The results of their efforts were revealed at a news conference at the Museum on December 5, 1997, when a computer generated a sound said to be similar to one the dinosaur could have made 75 million years ago. Drs. Robert Sullivan and Williamson, with support of the Dinosaur Society, published a formal scientific description and analysis of the new specimen as NMMNH&S Bulletin 15, A New Skull of Parasaurolophus (Dinosauria: Hadrosauridae) from the Kirtland Formation of New Mexico and a revision of the genus in 1999.

   After hearing the computer-generated sound, Dr. Williamson speculated that it could have been so distinctive that dinosaurs of the same species could have recognized each other. "This is not conclusive," Dr. Williamson said, "but it seems plausible because of the unique nature of each dinosaur's crest."

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