Paranasal air sinuses of predatory and armored dinosaurs, pt. 2

Witmer & Ridgely paper: 

Witmer, L. M., & Ridgely, R. C. (2008). The paranasal air sinuses of predatory and armored dinosaurs (Archosauria: Theropoda and Ankylosauria) and their contribution to cephalic structure. The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology, 291(11), 1362-1388.

Notes:

++ Nasal passages of the Majongasaurus and the T. Rex more closely resemble those of an ostrich than an alligator. "Anteorbital cavity is open laterally" and thus only covered by skin. Majongasaurus and T. Rex both had very extensive nasal sinuses that were pneumatized, even inflating bone. Eg. in T. Rex the palatine bone was inflated. T. Rex had larger nasal sinuses than Majongasaurus.

Terms: 

strut -- a structure to resist (generally) longitudinal compression. The face consists of many bones that act as struts. (wikipedia)

septa - walls, dividing a cavity or structure into smaller ones. (wikipedia)

lobular -a lobe is a clear anatomical division or extension[1] of an organ (as seen for example in the brain, lung, liver, or kidney) that can be determined without the use of a microscope at the gross anatomy level. (again, wikipedia)

ramus (plural rami) A small spray or twig. (biology) A branching, as of nerves or blood vessels. (wikipedia)

evaginate -(with reference to a tubular or pouch-shaped organ or structure) turn or be turned inside out. "the sacs evaginate and come to lie externally" from Oxford Languages

Palatine bone on a human:

from https://anatomy.app/encyclopedia/palatine-bone

Passage about nasal resonation in humans:

https://www.voicelessons.com/blog/knowledge/nasal-resonance/

Re: singing in "the mask". Yes, I remember this phrase from my years being classically trained in voice. It is interesting how I can relate my personal experience to dinosaur research -- which -- I suppose is the point of this work (Rawr!, Dinosaur Choir) -- in a sense. 

Open-source acoustical analysis tools

i-Simpa
https://i-simpa.univ-gustave-eiffel.fr/

PachydermAcoustic
https://github.com/PachydermAcoustic

 

Paranasal air sinuses of predatory and armored dinosaurs, pt. 1

Witmer, L. M., & Ridgely, R. C. (2008). The paranasal air sinuses of predatory and armored dinosaurs (Archosauria: Theropoda and Ankylosauria) and their contribution to cephalic structure. The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology, 291(11), 1362-1388.

Summary: Examines and compares archosaur nasal passages and sinuses of extinct and extant archosaurs. Focuses on 2 predatory theropods and 2 ankylosaurs, using the living taxa (alligator, ostrich, etc.) to infer soft tissues and compare.

Notes: 

++Used Amira software for segmentation

++In alligators, the antorbital fenestra are lost and their sinuses are enclosed with bone -- like mammals. Compares the antorbital sinus with the mammalian maxillary sinus. Nasal airway is long bc of their second palate.

++This antorbital sinus is the only paranasal sinus shared across Archosauria.  Ostriches, the other living taxa compared, also has one similar to a crocodile. Suborbital sinus is the largest in ostriches.

Terms: 

An ostium (plural ostia) in anatomy is a small opening or orifice. (wikipedia)

Abelisaurids - theropod ceratosaurian dinosaurs, mostly found in the Cretaceous. eg. Carnotaurus. note: Smaller arms than t. rex.

Vocalization References

Riede T, Tokuda IT, Farmer CG. Subglottal pressure and fundamental frequency control in contact calls of juvenile Alligator mississippiensis. J Exp Biol. 2011;214:3082–
3095. Accessed from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160820.

Riede, T., Li, Z., Tokuda, I. T., & Farmer, C. G. (2015). Functional morphology of the Alligator mississippiensis larynx with implications for vocal production. The Journal of Experimental Biology, 218(7), 991-998.

Li Z, Clarke JA. New insight into the anatomy of the hyolingual apparatus of Alligator mississippiensis and implications for reconstructing feeding in extinct archosaurs. J Anat. 2015 Jul;227(1):45-61. doi: 10.1111/joa.12320. Epub 2015 May 28. PMID: 26018316; PMCID: PMC4475358.

Robert V. Hill, Michael D. D'Emic, G. S. Bever, Mark A. Norell, A complex hyobranchial apparatus in a Cretaceous dinosaur and the antiquity of avian paraglossalia, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, Volume 175, Issue 4, 1 December 2015, Pages 892–909, https://doi.org/10.1111/zoj.12293

Note: https://www.isca-speech.org/archive_v0/Interspeech_2018/pdfs/1080.pdf

Computer and parts for computational dino larynx, Prototype 1 notes

My goal is to get some hardware up and running asap for a computational dino larynx. I did let some pure coding/dsp research sort of bottleneck me up on that end, but no more. 

My prototype 1 idea is just this: 
Raspberry Pi 4
Contact mic + usb adaptor to very easily go into raspberry pi as a breath sensor. I've used it as a breath sensor in another project, so it'll be at least good for 1st prototype.
Speakers, TBD -- looking for super cheap ideas for prototype 1, for now, I have headphones, but I want to get this system in a shape PRONTO so that I could install it a skull, so I can start designing and printing skulls. Main problem I see is lower end of the frequency on relatively small speakers -- but there are relatively headphones with good low-end now so I'm guessing there are options...

If I need a better anything, I'll replace as needed. And/or if I get grant money, I'll replace with better. 

I'm strongly leaning towards just using C++ DSP stuff to power my models & probably with Perry Cook's STK to power filters, etc. Or perhaps the related library LEAF. Leaning towards STK, tho, since bc Raspberry Pi runs linux and alsa now is bundled with linux, then it should be compatible. I couldn't find anything specific using STK with raspberry pi, but I think it should relatively painlessly. Also (in what I think is a minority opinion) I prefer coding in C++. It also looks like STK was last updated 7mo. ago or so, which is not terrible. 

I did look at Sid Fel's Artisynth for larynx modeling -- and it is super intriguing. I am definitely interested in it for a later prototype down the road but ultimately decided against it for the time being because the software is married to intel processors, limiting my hardware options if I were to use it (eg, no RPI). 

Anyhow, I am feeling comfortable with my direction finally, since everything is relatively modular and can be upgraded/replaced (incl. code/software) relatively easily.

Also, this looks like a cool library:
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02270792/document

And just a bookmark, schematic for wind instrument from ccrma:
https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/asahb04/Wind_Instruments.html

Dino Papers, Hopson (1975), Pt. 2 & Raspberry Pi dsp link

Hopson, J. A. (1975). The evolution of cranial display structures in hadrosaurian dinosaurs. Paleobiology, 1(1), 21-43.

Notes: He discusses Hadrosaurinae further, which is less useful for my research. However, some interesting ideas. One of them is that they (the Hadrosaurinae that are not kitosaurs) had soft tissue crests (there is more fossil evidence for this now) and also that their diverticula could inflate these via nasal passages for a visual display structure -- perhaps also achieving sound resonation functionality a la the elephant seal. The narial depression seen in these dinosaurs would seem to enable that as he agrees with  Versulys (1936) that the area would be occupied by nasal capsules, their glands, and be ar-filled.

With the mention of the elephant seal, I did do a side excursion of course to look and hear elephant seals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpIf6mPZJGA
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/elephant-seals-recognize-vocal-rhythms-avoid-bullies

The paper ends with the discussion about how each of the different hadrosaur groups and subgroups may have evolved their differing crests and nasal passages, including speculations on form and function.

And now for computer music interlude, which will eventually tie-in -- some research on raspberry pi:

From Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/diyaudio/comments/ncdmrs/raspberry_pi_for_dsp/

Dino papers: Hopson, 1975, Evolution of Cranial Display Pt. 1

Hopson, J. A. (1975). The evolution of cranial display structures in hadrosaurian dinosaurs. Paleobiology, 1(1), 21-43.

Notes/Summary: This paper was referenced by a few of the Weishampel, so feels like catch-up reading. 

Hopson introduces the idea that the head crests of hadrosaurs were for sexual display -- visual and with the hadrosaur with hollow crests -- audio as well. Crest variations were species and gender-specific and tended to increase (via evolution) with time. Crests varied externally and internally independently of one another and also hadrosaurs had well-developed eyes and ears.  He writes that the hadrosaurs developed diverticula to draw attention to a horn which was used aggressively in mating (he hypothesizes) and then for sexual display (visually) the hollow-crested dinosaurs evolved bone to cover it for acoustic resonation. (all from abstract)

He classifies hadrosaurs into 2 subfamilies (with hollow crests - lambeosaurinae) and without (hadrosaurinae), but in the hadrosaurinae creates 3 subgroups -- kritosaurs, edmontosaurs, saurolophines -- all with non-hollow crests or no bony crests. He believes the ancestral hadrosaurian condition is approximated by kritosaurs -- whilst edmontosaurs are an isolate -- he thinks the deeply excavated narial passages set them apart and all other hadrosaurs have elevated nasal bones in different forms. (including, I assume those that appear earlier in the fossil record).

new term break:

epithelium - The epithelium is a type of body tissue that forms the covering on all internal and external surfaces of your body, lines body cavities and hollow organs and is the major tissue in glands.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22062-epithelium#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20epithelium%3F,the%20major%20tissue%20in%20glands

In addition to the main olfactory epithelium, the septal organ of Masera (SOM) is another epithelium containing chemosensory neurons. It is located bilaterally on the nasal septum near the entrance of the nasopharynx and is completely encircled by respiratory epithelium (Figure 1). This island of olfactory sensory neurons projects axons to the MOB and targets a subset of glomeruli located in the posterior ventromedial bulb. 
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/olfactory-epithelium

**This refers to human olfactory epithelium but helps explicate the term in general.

end.

Questions Hopson poses about previous nasal crest function hypotheses (for -- underwater breathing, olfactory, display and combat organs)
1. Why does selection for above functions (mainly underwater breathing & olfactory) resulted in such diversity of shape among lambeosaurines?

2.  What is the function of the solid crests of the saurolophines?

And relatedly he also asks -- why did lambeosaurines evolve such a complicated way of doing these things that other hadrosaurs presumedly would have also done? In possibly different ways?

Now he argues for social signaling as a function of all crests in hadrosaurs (also after he wrote this note that they found fleshy crests.....). Specifically, he mentioned courtship, mating fights, and sexual selection.  Kritosaurs could have used their crests and humps and horns for combat.

PAUSE pg. 37