Scientists believe birds’ skulls hold clues to inner lives of long-extinct dinosaurs

Bird skulls from the collection of professor Steve Brusatte, a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh who says ‘birds are dinosaurs’. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

T rex is often depicted as more brawn than brains, but now scientists are hoping to probe just what was going on inside its head, drawing on findings from another kind of dinosaur: birds.

Scientists have previously found some species of bird not only make and use tools, but are able to plan ahead and show basic forms of empathy – with laboratory tests suggesting emus can recognise other birds might have different experiences to themselves.