Dinosaur Brains

The discovery of a new Psittacosaurus species from a braincase, how spinosaur brains adapted for eating fish, revisiting T. rex intelligence, and many more dinosaur brain updates

For links to every news story, all of the details we shared about Tatankacephalus, and our fun fact check out https://iknowdino.com/Tatankacephalus-Episode-547/

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Dinosaur of the day Tatankacephalus, the "bison-headed" armored dinosaur.

In dinosaur news this week:

• A skull, including a braincase, is enough to tell us there’s a new Psittacosaurus species, Psittacosaurus houi
• Studying dinosaur brains is an evolving field
• Brain size varied in dinosaurs
• Ceratopsians became less intelligent and had worse hearing and a worse sense of smell as they evolved to larger sizes
• Ornithopods, and especially hadrosaurs, had bigger brains than we thought
• Thescelosaurus had a powerful sense of smell, a sensitive vestibular system, but terrible hearing—all which may mean it was a burrower
• A study of spinosaur brains and skulls helps show how they adapted to eat fish
• Living birds have high EQs which they evolved from non-avian dinosaurs (although we don't really use EQs much anymore)
• Shuvuuia may not have had specialized hearing
• The enantiornithe Navaornis hestiae tells us a lot about bird brains
• Unique brain shape in birds may be why birds survived non-avian dinosaurs after the mass extinction event
• Parrots and humans may use similar brain mechanisms to produce complex sounds
• Bird brains (and our brains) are wired for taking turns when communicating
• T. rex had the intelligence of a baboon paper
• Rebuttal to T. rex baboon intelligence paper

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