Nevermore....Of Dinosaurs and Parrots

Pax Christi everyone!

Is it conceivable that a dinosaur could imitate human speech, and if so, who’s the best candidate for parroting?

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Probably not, unless dinosaurs and humans were contemporaries. :sunglasses: (You didn’t sneak off and become a YEC, did you?) Someone more knowledgeable about dinosaur larynxes syrinxes(?) and soft tissue may have a serious answer.

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I have no clue, if the physiology would have allowed it, but it sure is fun to imagine different dinosuars immitating different human voices, or just humans.

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My impression is probably not, given that pretty much all birds that can mimic human speech are ones with already complex vocalizations (derived psittaciforms, corvids, sturnids, etc.). Also, most (grade) dinosaurs probably sounded more like modern crocodilians than like birds, given that they have crocodile-like larynxes. Syrinxes (not to be confused with Syrinx [the nymph] or Syrinx [the snail]) are earliest-known in later-Cretaceous birds.

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Maybe a parrot? (considering they’re present day dinosaurs)? :slight_smile:

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Here’s a BBC radio programme, about 30-40 minutes long, that I remember hearing a couple of years ago: The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry - Series 13 - Jurassic Squawk - BBC Sounds

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A 1998 paper (A lower jaw from a Cretaceous parrot | Nature) identified a small bone as a parrot jaw from the Cretaceous. However, the claims that the features were distinctive for a subgroup of modern parrots were never substantiated, and the consensus is that it is actually a bone from a non-avian dinosaur. The claim of modern parrots in the Cretaceous has been seized on by AiG as an example of a supposedly modern-like fossils that is supposedly evidence against evolution.

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Barney 

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You speak of the evil one!

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@Combine_Advisor and @beaglelady, I had thought of that-one-who-shall-not-be-named as well, shuddered and then tried to remove myself from the presence of that purple nightmare. I may be scarred (or scared) for life now.

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I saw it once, at about 3. I didn’t like it because it was insufficiently realistic.

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I’m cracking up here. You must have been a handful as a 3-year old!
As a parent, kids’ books and shows can be intolerable, because of their inaneness and syrupy sweetness. Big Purple was like kids’ drinks, full of high-fructose corn syrup, and maybe “fortified” with vitamins and minerals. I was so grateful the Purple Monstrosity was nearly extinct by the time my girls came around, that I was shielded from the constant intellectual diabetes.
It also REALLY helps to stubbornly refuse to pay for tv content. We were stuck with some unrealistic, but really decent childern’s television on PBS.

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If you really want to learn about the amazing intelligence of parrots (who don’t simply parrot what they hear), I suggest the following book:

Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence–and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process

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Well, I have watched almost every episode of Dino Dana, and have never seen a talking dinosaur.

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No joke, my parents wouldn’t let me watch Barney when I was little. I totally get why.

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No way. They actually talk? Best day ever!

Thanks, I’ll check it out!

You can’t go wrong with a network that has Sesame Street and Word Girl.

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I don’t remember if it was one of my boys or my wife that had to point out the obvious double entendre of “We all live in a capital ‘I’” to me. I didn’t like the song as well after that (but I still remember the tune of the opening line from forty-ish years ago ; - ).

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They don’t talk the way people do, of course. But they can learn words, understand abstract concepts, etc.

Nova Science Now : Irene Pepperberg & Alex

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That’s an understatement, from what I’m told.

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