Scientists discover 'super senses' in dinosaurs previously known to be 'pretty boring'

Some dinosaurs, the majestic creatures that went extinct millions of years ago, had unique characteristics, such as staying underground for a part of their lives, according to the latest examination of an "overlooked" skull fossil at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in the United States.

The 'super senses' of Thescelosaurus

Thescelosaurus neglectus was a small-sized dinosaur, literally meaning, "wonderful, overlooked lizard."

Scientists from North Carolina State University conducted an examination of the skull of this dinosaur that revealed its "super senses."

It turns out that they had an amazing sense of smell, alongside the physiological traits present in the underground species.

"The work is the first to link a specific sensory fingerprint with this behaviour in extinct dinosaurs," according to an official release.

"The irony is that palaeontologists generally think of these animals as pretty boring," Lindsay Zanno, associate research professor at North Carolina State University, head of paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and co-author of the work, said in an official release.

"When we first looked at our results we thought, yeah, this animal is plain as toast. But then we took a big step back and realised there was something unique about the combination of Willo’s sensory strengths and weaknesses."

How did Thescelosaurus' 'super senses' unravel?

One of the researchers, David Button, a former Brimley Postdoctoral Scholar at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and North Carolina State University used a CT scanner to reconstruct soft tissues in the skull of aThescelosaurus specimen, named Willo.

When the sensory structures were compared to those of the other dinosaurs and their living relatives, the researchers determined the relative size of Willo’s brain, as well as what her senses of smell, hearing, and balance were like.

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"We found that Thescelosaurus heard low frequency sounds best and that the range of frequencies it could hear overlaps with T. rex," Zanno said in an official release.

"This doesn’t tell us they were adapted to hearing T. rex vocalise, but it certainly didn’t hurt them to know when a major predator was tooling about in the area. More interesting to us was the fact that these particular deficiencies are often associated with animals that spend time underground."

Thescelosaurus balanced its poor hearing with an excellent sense of smell.

T. neglectus' poor cognitive and hearing abilities, coupled with powerful arms and legs and overdeveloped senses of smell and balance, are all features characteristic of animals that spend time underground and/or engage in digging behaviours today, according to the official release related to the study.