By about 125 million years ago, mammals increased their vocabulary above a dozen and perhaps for some species at times into the hundreds. This vocabulary, or signaling, was a series of gestures, grunts, and screeches.

Today, mammals communicate with a range of signals and gestures. Take the opossum and wolf. The opossum uses about a dozen signals, wolves, range into the hundreds. Wolves use a rich tapestry of communication: howls to signal location, growls to assert dominance, and a myriad of body postures to convey submission, aggression, affection, etc.

It’s also fun to speculate about cognition in other branches from reptiles to sharks. A few dinosaur species, over their 170 million years, almost certainly developed rich communication systems. How rich is anyone’s guess.

Birds complicate the story. The intelligent crow shows that advanced cognition can evolve later, independently, and in just a few million years. Crows are very intelligent, with problem-solving abilities comparable to a five-year-old child.

As for other dinosaurs, while the average was more likely in the dozens. My guess is that a few highly social dinosaurs evolved communication repertoires reaching well into the hundreds, especially if we count vocal sounds, postures, display movements, threat signals, mating displays, parental calls, color or crest displays, and group coordination signals. Speculation, yes. But given the vast amount of time, and what we do know, almost anything is possible.

Based on surviving species, it is less likely that most reptiles cracked into the hundreds, and we may never know.

As a final twist to the story, and to stroke wisdom, consider fish. The Manta Ray, a shark cousin that split off 306 million years ago, is surprisingly smart. This diversity shows that cognition can evolve in various ways on various branches.