The noggins of fierce dinosaurs like T. rex were filled with … air. The airy skulls would have lightened the load of the head and possibly acted as resonating chambers for communication among some of the dinosaurs, new research reveals. "We always knew dinosaurs had relatively small brains, so we might regard them as being airheads, and we can see that's kind of literally true," said researcher Lawrence Witmer of Ohio University. The new finding adds to research by Witmer and his colleagues in which they found the air spaces in the skulls of duck-billed dinosaurs helped the animals to vocalize, possibly giving each of them distinct "voices." Light-headed Witmer and Ohio University colleague Ryan Ridgely used computed tomography to scan the skulls of two predatory dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex and Majungasaurus , as well as two ankylosaurian dinosaurs, Panoplosaurus and Euoplocephalus — both plant-eaters with armored bodies and short snouts. The resulting … [Read more...] about Dinosaurs Were Airheads