Listen to the sounds ancient insects made when dinosaurs roamed the Earth
Listen to these Jurassic insect sounds
- Published
While we have a good idea of what life looked like when dinosaurs were around, it's a bit harder to imagine what it sounded like - until now!
Scientists have used a combination of artificial intelligence and modelling of fossil wings dating back millions of years to figure out what sounds Jurassic insects may have made.
Their findings were published in August in a scientific journal called the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Read on to find out more...
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How did they do it?
The team of scientists studied 20 fossils of insects in China.
They were all from the Jurassic period, making them over 165 million years old.
But of course, fossils can't make any noise - so how did they find out what the insects would have sounded like?
These insects were roaming around at the same time as dinosaurs
Well, the way insects make sounds is a bit like playing a musical instrument.
They rub certain parts of their body together in order to make vibrations, which we can hear.
Think of instruments like xylophones - when you hit it with something else, it makes a sound.
Co-author of the study Jun-Jie Gu told BBC Newsround: "By measuring their teeth and using computers to model how their wings vibrated, we recreated their calls."
What did they find?
The scientists found lots of different types of insect calls - some were low-pitched like crickets, while others were high-pitched like leafhoppers.
But there was something else they discovered which they weren't expecting.
Jun-Jie told BBC Newsround: "Some of these ancient insects sang high-pitched songs that were so high, humans can't even hear them!
"This was a big surprise, because scientists used to think insects only evolved those super-high calls to avoid bats.
"But bats didn't appear until 100 million years later. So something else must have been listening."
It was thought that insects only developed really high pitched noises to avoid bats, but their findings show there must have been animals with very good hearing millions of years sooner
She continued: "We think early mammals with good hearing were eavesdropping on these insects — trying to hunt them by sound.
"Imagine a world where insects are singing, dinosaurs are roaming, and tiny mammals are creeping around, all listening to each other."
What do you think of the insect sounds? Are they what you would have imagined?
Let us know in the comments below...
