• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
  • Home
  • About
    • Contact
    • Privacy
    • Terms of use
  • Subscribe
  • Your Membership

Science and Technology News

Dedicated to the wonder of discovery

  • News
  • Features
  • Life
  • Health
  • Research
  • Engineering

Dinosaurs that hunted in the dark

May 7, 2021 by Editor

Today’s 10,000 species of birds live in virtually every habitat on Earth, but only a handful have adaptations enabling them to hunt active prey in the dark of night.

Scientists have long wondered whether theropod dinosaurs – the group that gave rise to modern birds – had similar sensory adaptations.

A new study led by University of the Witwatersrand scientist, Professor Jonah Choiniere, sought to investigate how vision and hearing abilities of dinosaurs and birds compared.

The international team of researchers used CT scanning and detailed measurements to collect information on the relative size of the eyes and inner ears of nearly 100 living bird and extinct dinosaur species.

To measure hearing, the team measured the length of the lagena, the organ that processes incoming sound information (called the cochlea in mammals). The barn owl, which can hunt in complete darkness using hearing alone, has the proportionally longest lagena of any bird.

To assess vision, the team looked at the scleral ring, a series of bones surrounding the pupil, of each species. Like a camera lens, the larger the pupil can open, the more light can get in, enabling better vision at night. By measuring the diameter of the ring, the scientists could tell how much light the eye can gather.

The team found that many carnivorous theropods such as Tyrannosaurus and Dromaeosaurus had vision optimized for the daytime, and better-than-average hearing presumably to help them hunt.

However, a diminutive theropod named Shuvuuia, part of a group known as alvarezsaurs, had both extraordinary hearing and night vision.

The extremely large lagena of this species is almost identical in relative size to today’s barn owl, suggesting that Shuvuuia could have hunted in complete darkness.

The large lagena of Shuvuuia came as a surprise discovery to Dr James Neenan, the joint first author of the study, and Choiniere’s former post-doc at Wits.

“As I was digitally reconstructing the Shuvuuia skull, I couldn’t believe the lagena size… I called Professor Choiniere to have a look. We both thought it might be a mistake, so I processed the other ear – only then did we realise what a cool discovery we had on our hands! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when I got there – dinosaur ears weren’t supposed to look like that!” said Choiniere.

The eyes of Shuvuuia were also of note, as they had some of the proportionally largest pupils yet measured in birds or dinosaurs, suggesting that they could likely see very well at night.

Shuvuuia was a small dinosaur, about the size of a chicken, and it lived in the deserts of what is now Mongolia.

Shuvuuia’s skeleton is among the most bizarre of all dinosaurs – it has a fragile, bird-like skull, brawny, weightlifter arms with a single claw on each hand, and long, roadrunner-like legs.

This odd combination of features has baffled scientists since its discovery in the 1990s.

With the new data on Shuvuuia’s senses, the scientific team hypothesizes that, like many desert animals, Shuvuuia would have foraged at night, using its hearing and vision to find prey like small mammals and insects, using its long legs to rapidly run that prey down, and using its strong forelimbs to pry the prey out of burrows or shrubby vegetation.

“Nocturnal activity, digging ability, and long hind limbs are all features of animals that live in deserts today,” said Choiniere, “but it’s surprising to see them all combined in a single dinosaur species that lived more than 65 million years ago.”

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Print
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Pinterest
  • WhatsApp

Related Posts

  • The ‘one who causes fear’ – new meat-eating dinosaur discovered
    32
    The ‘one who causes fear’ – new meat-eating dinosaur discoveredResearch published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology describes a newly discovered species of dinosaur – named the 'one who causes fear', or Llukalkan aliocranianus. Around 80 million years ago as tyrannosaurs ruled the Northern Hemisphere, this lookalike was one of 10 currently known species of abelisaurids flourishing in the…
    Tags: species, dinosaurs, skull, hearing, dinosaur, discovery, long, small, prey, lived

Filed Under: History, Research Tagged With: bird, birds, choiniere, dinosaur, dinosaurs, discovery, ears, eyes, features, hearing, hunt, lagena, legs, lived, long, mammals, night, prey, scientists, shuvuuia, single, size, skull, species, suggesting, team, vision

Primary Sidebar

Latest news

  • AutoX expands robotaxi operation zone to 1,000 sq km
  • Schaeffler acquires precision gearbox maker Melior Motion 
  • Sunflower Labs provides its security drone system to range of new customers
  • Monarch Tractor showcases ‘world’s first fully electric, driver-optional tractor’
  • Robot performs laparoscopic surgery without guiding hand of a human
  • Amazon owner’s Blue Origin to buy asteroid mining company Honeybee Robotics
  • Sydney scientists achieve ‘99 per cent accuracy’ for quantum computing in silicon
  • Ceremorphic unveils plans to build supercomputer infrastructure on 5 nanometer chips
  • Motion capture is guiding the next generation of extraterrestrial robots
  • Baidu’s autonomous electric carmaker Jidu raises $400 million in Series A financing

Most read

  • AutoX expands robotaxi operation zone to 1,000 sq km
    AutoX expands robotaxi operation zone to 1,000 sq km
  • Schaeffler acquires precision gearbox maker Melior Motion 
    Schaeffler acquires precision gearbox maker Melior Motion 
  • Sunflower Labs provides its security drone system to range of new customers
    Sunflower Labs provides its security drone system to range of new customers
  • Monarch Tractor showcases ‘world’s first fully electric, driver-optional tractor’
    Monarch Tractor showcases ‘world’s first fully electric, driver-optional tractor’
  • Robot performs laparoscopic surgery without guiding hand of a human
    Robot performs laparoscopic surgery without guiding hand of a human
  • Amazon owner’s Blue Origin to buy asteroid mining company Honeybee Robotics
    Amazon owner’s Blue Origin to buy asteroid mining company Honeybee Robotics
  • Sydney scientists achieve ‘99 per cent accuracy’ for quantum computing in silicon
    Sydney scientists achieve ‘99 per cent accuracy’ for quantum computing in silicon
  • Ceremorphic unveils plans to build supercomputer infrastructure on 5 nanometer chips
    Ceremorphic unveils plans to build supercomputer infrastructure on 5 nanometer chips
  • Motion capture is guiding the next generation of extraterrestrial robots
    Motion capture is guiding the next generation of extraterrestrial robots
  • Baidu’s autonomous electric carmaker Jidu raises $400 million in Series A financing
    Baidu’s autonomous electric carmaker Jidu raises $400 million in Series A financing

Secondary Sidebar

Categories

  • Agriculture
  • Archaeology
  • Astronomy
  • Biology
  • Brain
  • Chemistry
  • Computer games
  • Computing
  • Digital Economy
  • Education
  • Energy
  • Engineering
  • Environment
  • Features
  • Genetics
  • Health
  • History
  • Industry
  • Life
  • Nature
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Physics
  • Research
  • Science
  • Social
  • Space
  • Technology
  • Uncategorized
  • Universe

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in