The hearing ability of animals
In matters of hearing, human beings are far behind animals, whose hearing capacity is far superior in most cases. In addition, there are some species with specially developed hearing, such as the moth, the owl or the elephant. In the next post we give you more details about what animals have extraordinary hearing.
Difference between animal hearing and human hearing
People and animals have very different hearing abilities. The reason is the ability to perceive the frequencies of sounds. While humans only perceive sound sources that are between 20 Hz (hertz) and 20,000 Hz, many animals lengthen this range in front and behind. In the case of sounds below 20Hz, we speak of infrasound. Animals like him elephant or some types of rats, they can hear them. And if the noise exceeds 20,000 Hz, it is called ultrasound.
Animals that hear ultrasound
In the case of ultrasounds, there are many animals that perceive them. To begin with, pets: dogs and cats can perceive sounds above 40,000 Hz. Then there are other animals that far exceed these registers: for example, the Dolphin, which can perceive ultrasounds of up to 160,000 Hz, while the bat It can reach up to 200,000 Hz. The former communicate with each other with this type of sounds, while the latter use them to orient themselves.
The animals with the most extraordinary hearing
Apart from the animals already mentioned – dogs, cats, elephants, rats, dolphins and bats – there are other animals with extraordinary hearing, for different reasons:
- The owl He has an extraordinary ear, which does not lose capacity over time. As a curiosity, it does not have an external ear.
- He penguin You can hear underwater, but you can also block the reception of sounds if they affect or harm you.
- He rabbit They have an unparalleled hearing capacity: they can hear sounds originating from 15 kilometers away.
The moth, the animal with the greatest hearing capacity
lwax moth, whose scientific name is ‘Galleria mellonella’, is considered the animal with the best hearing on the planet. The data are illustrative: this insect is capable of hearing ultrasounds of up to 300 kHz in frequency, the highest acoustic acuity of the entire animal kingdom.
Other insects with great hearing capacity are the grasshopper -which can even detect ultrasounds emitted by its main predator, the bat.