What would Godzilla and other movie monsters really sound like?

The latest King Kong movie, Kong: Skull Island, is set in an uncharted island in the Pacific Ocean where prehistoric animals have gotten very big — and loud. Aside from a giant ape that walks like a man, we have enormous ants that chirp like birds, and gigantic roaring lizards. The way these monsters look is often based on real animals. But what about the sounds they make? Are those accurate?

We wanted to look into what a giant beast should sound like — whether it’s Godzilla, the prehistoric Kong lizards, or more realistic dinosaurs. So we asked paleontologists, who’ve been trying to figure out what dinosaurs sounded like for decades. It’s hard to get an answer because the vocal organs used to make sounds, like the vocal cords in our...

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