Probing Dinosaur Cognition Through Bird Skulls

Professor Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh leads a team analysing bird skulls to locate neuroanatomical markers linked to behaviours such as tool use, planning and empathy. By matching these markers to fossil theropod braincases, they aim to infer the cognitive abilities of species like Tyrannosaurus rex with statistical confidence.

The Guardian

Birds are the sole surviving lineage of non-avian dinosaurs, sharing feathers, a modified pelvis and brain structures with Jurassic ancestors, making them a living model for dinosaur neurobiology.

The Guardian

Brusatte, author of *The Story of Birds*, coordinates an international group of anatomists, neurobiologists and geneticists who combine museum bird-skull collections with high-resolution imaging and gene-editing.

The Guardian

Bird brain-structure markers predict dinosaur cognition with about 95 % confidence. The 150-million-year-old *Archaeopteryx* bridges morphology, a six-day-old quail embryo shows a pelvis resembling T. rex, and CRISPR activation of dormant tooth genes in chickens can induce teeth, revealing latent dinosaur traits.

The Guardian

Brusatte notes that direct behavioural tests on extinct taxa are impossible, but bird neuroanatomy offers a viable proxy. He argues that early birds’ rapid growth, ground-dwelling habits and seed-eating beaks helped them survive the asteroid impact, providing a model of resilience for interpreting dinosaur ecology.

The Guardian

Some scientists call the method speculative, describing it as “a long shot,” and warn that inferring behaviour from brain shape alone remains indirect without corroborating fossil evidence.

The Guardian

If validated, the approach could reshape views of dinosaur sociality, problem-solving and sensory perception, narrowing a 66-million-year gap in behavioural knowledge and highlighting the continuity between modern birds and their dinosaur ancestors.

The Guardian

*The Story of Birds* will detail results, and the team plans further skull scans and field trips to locate additional Cretaceous avian fossils to refine the neuroanatomical database.

The Guardian

• “But if there are some distinctive features of the brain that maybe tell you with 95% confidence that the animal with that kind of brain is capable of that kind of behaviour today, then we can at least make predictions about these fossils.” — Prof Steve Brusatte, palaeontologist

The Guardian

• “I don’t think it’s totally percolated into the popular consciousness that birds are dinosaurs,” — Prof Steve Brusatte

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• “There was a whole fantastic aviary of birds flapping and fluttering overhead of T rex and Triceratops until the asteroid hit,” — Prof Steve Brusatte

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• “When they are confronted with a crisis, maybe not all of them make it through, but some of them do, and they can repopulate really quickly.” — Prof Steve Brusatte

The Guardian