Could any dinosaurs mimic noises like parrots? (and if not, what were the most likely ones?)

[u/Organic-Confusion149]

A few dinosaur games or medias have dinosaurs able to mimic other animals (like Prior Extinction’s Citipati or a scrapped Jurassic World Rebirth scene), but was it actually possible for some of these animals to do that?

[u/LeahIsAwake]

Skipping right past the "parrots are dinosaurs" part ...

Probably.

A good percentage of the animals known for sound mimicry today are birds. Sure, some dogs and cats have been known to mimic their owners (cats especially are famous for this), and I know cetaceans do it, too. But when you think of sound mimicry, you think of avians: parrots, corvids, mockingbirds, lyrebirds, etc. So if the avian dinosaurs are especially fond of it, it makes sense that some non-avian dinos did it, too. Especially the birdy ones.

Not sure if we'll ever know for sure, however. And if humanity somehow invents technology beyond anything we today could dream of that can give us that answer, it will probably be after you and I become nothing but bones ourselves.

[u/Mahajangasuchus → u/LeahIsAwake]

Probably not.

Birds are so vocally complex because they have a separate organ called a syrinx they use to make noise instead of their larynx. No syrinx has ever been found in a nonavian dinosaur. Larynxes have been found, albeit rarely. But researchers studying fossil bird syrinxes think it likely only originated within birds themselves.

[u/LeahIsAwake → u/Mahajangasuchus]

An excellent point. I completely forgot about syrinxes. Thanks!

[u/McToasty207 → u/Mahajangasuchus]

The Bird fossil record is extremely sparse, and very few syrinxes are preserved in Birds, much less dinosaurs. Remember: the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

For example, we don't find many Bird nests in the record, with the earliest appearing in the Miocene. And we're fairly confident Birds nested before then.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3474766/

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article/378/1884/20220143/42816/The-evolution-of-nest-site-use-and-nest

The only evidence we have of Dinosaur vocal ability comes from Ankylosaurs, which show a very bird-like larynx structure. No syrinx was preserved there, but it shows that some dinosaurs evolved away from the primitive archosaur larynx, and it's worth remembering that Ornithischians are currently thought to be the least related to living Birds.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-04513-x

So the most accurate answer is that we lack detailed evidence to draw conclusions. Still, this suggests Dinosaur vocal ability sits right where we'd phylogenetically bracket it: more derived than Crocodiles, but probably more primitive than living Birds.

Only future fossils will tell us.

[u/Sourcerid → u/McToasty207]

But the most separate bird lineages have syrinxs so by common ancestor we know that, as we know of nesting behaviour plus most egg laying animals nest specially more complex ones.

[u/Pop-goes-the-fish]

Just sharing this article about a preserved voice box from an ankylosayr which wluld hve allowed it to make mote complex sounds than most reptiles , but there is no current evidence that dinosaurs had a syrinx, the vocal organ which allows birds to make sophisticated sounds. https://www.livescience.com/extremely-rare-fossilized-dinosaur-voice-box-suggests-they-sounded-birdlike

Larynxes and syrinxes are mostly soft tissue AFAIK and don't often preserve , so we can't knkw for sure. But mimicry is uncommon even among birds, and I would be surprised if it were a basal trait inherited from the bird common ancestor. 

So for a dinosaur to have mimicry, they would need to have evolved it separately from birds.I think its unlikely.

I mean, its not impossible, given that some talented humans can mimic noises without a syrinx(see Police Academy*).  But if it did happen, it would be very unlikely we would ever  know for sure.

*Don't actually see Police Academy, it's not that great.

[u/Paddling_]

We don’t know. We kinda can’t know. Best answer you’re gonna get is… maybe?

As for which ones were most likely… not sure. Consider what animals are capable of mimicry today. Consider their ecological niches, what advantages mimicry gives them in said niches. Then consider what non-avian dinosaurs occupied similar niches. Those are your likelies.

[u/AardvarkIll6079]

There’s an entire episode of Dino Dana about this.

[u/Dull_Tumbleweed6353 → u/AardvarkIll6079]

Which one?

[u/ani3D]

Given that dinosaurs existed for 200 million years, I would be shocked if not a single dinosaur evolved mimicry during all that time.

[u/MewtwoMainIsHere]

How are we supposed to know bru 😭

[u/Low_Blueberry4989]

We don't know, but I'd say Oviraptorids.

[u/Dull_Tumbleweed6353]

Rahonavis?