Parasaurolophus horn function

[Arul]

Greetings i wanna share something,im wacthing nat geo wild on tv few days ago,the program is "living dinosaur".they discus about parasaurolophus horn function.after they examine the radiology result of its horn,they said that they found a labyrinth form and its look like a musical instrument labyrinth form (trombone).they assumed that the function of their "horn" is for communicate especially for sing a mating song.thats why the male horn is longer and larger than the female.what do you think friends ? Thx

[Balaur]

I think it was used to amplify sound, to communicate with members of the herd. I think that it could also be used to attract mates, and the crest would be larger to distinguish it from female calls and to be used as part of the courtship. Also, do you guys thimk it could have webbing between the neck and crest?

[reinier zwanink]

I have seen the program to
You can also find samples on youtube
The sound of Parasaurolophus!: http://youtu.be/kJ3Ra-WdZrs
it could be used as a amplefierer and they could make more sounds that what we can make now with it i am sure
If you remove the digital sounds it sounds very real
The idea of it being used for mating sound good to and its my feeling as well that male would sport more colors than females
Bigger does not have to be the case

[Arul]

I have seen the program to
You can also find samples on youtube
The sound of Parasaurolophus!: http://youtu.be/kJ3Ra-WdZrs
it could be used as a amplefierer and they could make more sounds that what we can make now with it i am sure
If you remove the digital sounds it sounds very real
The idea of it being used for mating sound good to and its my feeling as well that male would sport more colors than females
Bigger does not have to be the case

Ahh yeah i hope i can wacth that episode again,thx for the link

[Arul]

I think it was used to amplify sound, to communicate with members of the herd. I think that it could also be used to attract mates, and the crest would be larger to distinguish it from female calls and to be used as part of the courtship. Also, do you guys thimk it could have webbing between the neck and crest?

First i thought they use it for fight or self defense  emm if it really2 have a web,i think they will not use their crest for fight because it could be hurt them self ..

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Greetings i wanna share something,im wacthing nat geo wild on tv few days ago,the program is "living dinosaur".they discus about parasaurolophus horn function.after they examine the radiology result of its horn,they said that they found a labyrinth form and its look like a musical instrument labyrinth form (trombone).they assumed that the function of their "horn" is for communicate especially for sing a mating song.thats why the male horn is longer and larger than the female.what do you think friends ? Thx

Myself, I would be intersted to know how they determined which was male or female other than guessing by the crest...which could suggest the conclusions might be backwards.Do we know the longer crest was male and how exactly?

[reinier zwanink]

Well i read (and heard) that they cant find if a fossil was male or female for there anatomy is the same
Rarely they find a special bone thats made by ovulating females

[stargatedalek]

sound and display is really all it can be used for, its not strong enough to use as a weapon

IIRC gender dimorphism in parasaurolophus is entirely speculative?

[HD-man]

Greetings i wanna share something,im wacthing nat geo wild on tv few days ago,the program is "living dinosaur".

The only Nat Geo Wild doc I can find by that name is about fish: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/wild/episodes/living-dinosaur/

The idea of it being used for mating sound good to and its my feeling as well that male would sport more colors than females
Bigger does not have to be the case

Based on what I've read, it probably was the case (E.g. See the following quote & pic).

To quote Gardom/Milner ( http://www.amazon.com/Natural-History-Museum-Book-Dinosaurs/dp/184442183X/ref=la_B00MTGG5RK_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411521534&sr=1-1 ):

SIGHT AND SOUND. The long crest of this male Parasaurolophus acted as a sound and visual signal. Females had a shorter more curved crest so they could be distinguished within the herd.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

So again I ask, how do we know which was male and which female? Is there some fossil evidence for this or speculation ?

Or as Malcom said..."does someone go around the park lifting the skirts to check?"

[tyrantqueen]

Not sure what the current consensus is on para crests. But, at one time, wasn't one species, P. cyrtocristatus, thought to have been a female of P. walkeri?



I'm not sure that opinion is valid any more, though.

[Arul]

Wow,im getting confuse right now hehehe i think i have to read some net/text book first..

[HD-man]

So again I ask, how do we know which was male and which female? Is there some fossil evidence for this or speculation ?

It's based on Hopson's 1975 biometric study ("Figure 5: Hopson [37] postulated that sexual dimorphisms were present in the size of Parasaurolopohus cranial crests. The narrower and "weaker" crests were thought to belong to females (shown on the right), whereas the larger and "fuller" crests were thought to be those of the males (shown on the left)": http://aps.group.shef.ac.uk/level-4-web-sites/l4-students-09/barden-holly/4th-year-dissertation.pdf ).

I'm not sure that opinion is valid any more, though.

Based on what I've read, it is (E.g. See the following quote & pics).

Quoting Holtz (See "HADROSAURIDAE": http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/G104/lectures/104ornithop.html ):

Differences in crest size and shapes within some populations may reflect sexual and/or ontogenetic variations.

[stargatedalek]

last I heard the general consensus was that they were 2 distinct species

[tyrantqueen]

Based on what I've read, it is (E.g. See the following quote & pics).

I see, thank you for the clarification. I always thought it made more sense that they were juveniles or females. I checked out Scott Hartman's skeletal restoration of P. cyrtocristatus, but he seems to think it's a different species, not gender.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I understand the basic idea that it is being said the two different crests represent opposite sexes. My specific question is what is the basis being used to suggest the larger fuller crest belongs to the male?
  Is there some fossil trait or reasoning behind this decision or is it speculation?

[tyrantqueen]

It's just speculation, based on living animals. It's not like they looked at the medullary bone or growth rings etc.

[CityRaptor]

It's usually the male animal that develops structures like that, or when both have it, it is the one that develops them more prominently. That also is true in species where the female is bigger.

[stargatedalek]

But there are indeed exceptions to the rule, some birds for instance the female has bolder colours

I had thought there was more besides the crest to go on classifying them as different species?

[CityRaptor]

Ofcourse there are always some expections. For mammals it would be the Spotted Hyena, where the female is bigger than the male.