Animal Ears 🦌 How animals hear
Deer hearing range in hertz
Odocoileus virginianus
Steerable ears that sweep the forest for the twig that snaps.
In short
A Deer hears from about 115 Hz up to 54 kHz, and the pitch it catches best is near 8 kHz. Animal Ears lets you take any sound of yours and hear it exactly as it would.
A deer reaches 54,000 Hz, almost triple your ceiling, and is sharpest near 8,000 Hz: precisely the pitch of a twig snapping or a dry leaf dragging. Its large, mobile ears each swivel separately to sweep the forest without needing to move its head. When you see a deer freeze and stare at nothing, it is almost always listening to something your ears never even brushed.
Hertz (Hz)
Which pitches it hears
Hertz count how many times per second a sound vibrates. Few vibrations = low (the rumble of thunder, about 30 Hz). Many vibrations = high (a microwave beeping, about 3,000 Hz). And ‘1 kHz' is just shorthand for 1,000 Hz. You hear, roughly, from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz.
A low sound rumbles (think thunder); a high sound squeals (think a mosquito). These three numbers mark how far down this animal goes, how far up it goes, and which pitch it hears most clearly of all.
| Lowest it hears | 115 Hz |
|---|---|
| Highest it hears | 54 kHz |
| Hears most clearly | 8 kHz |
| What you hear | 20 Hz – 20 kHz |
Your ears vs a Deer's
Yes: it picks up pitches so high they are pure silence to you, up to about 54 kHz. Your ceiling is 20 kHz.
Audiogram
| Hertz (Hz) | Hearing threshold |
|---|---|
| 125 Hz | 58 dB |
| 250 Hz | 42 dB |
| 500 Hz | 28 dB |
| 1 kHz | 18 dB |
| 2 kHz | 10 dB |
| 4 kHz | 2 dB |
| 8 kHz | -3 dB |
| 16 kHz | 6 dB |
| 32 kHz | 22 dB |
| 54 kHz | 60 dB |
Digitised from the Heffner & Heffner (2010) behavioural audiogram; 60 dB SPL criterion (115 Hz–54 kHz), best ~-3 dB at 8 kHz.
Can a Deer hear things you can't?
A Deer picks up everything from 115 Hz (the deepest) to 54 kHz (the highest), and hears best around 8 kHz.
Yes: it picks up pitches so high they are pure silence to you, up to about 54 kHz. Your ceiling is 20 kHz.
Frequently asked questions
What sounds can a Deer hear?
A Deer picks up everything from 115 Hz (the deepest) to 54 kHz (the highest), and hears best around 8 kHz.
Can a Deer hear things you can't?
Yes: it picks up pitches so high they are pure silence to you, up to about 54 kHz. Your ceiling is 20 kHz.
How does Animal Ears make a sound like a Deer would hear it?
Scientists have measured, pitch by pitch, the quietest volume at which a Deer starts to hear each sound. We take that curve and apply it to your recording like a giant equaliser: we turn up the pitches the animal hears beautifully and turn down or remove the ones that simply don't exist for it. The result gets close to what it would notice... but it still arrives through your ears.
Hertz (Hz)
Hertz count how many times per second a sound vibrates. Few vibrations = low (the rumble of thunder, about 30 Hz). Many vibrations = high (a microwave beeping, about 3,000 Hz). And ‘1 kHz' is just shorthand for 1,000 Hz. You hear, roughly, from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz.
Ultrasound
Sounds so high your ears no longer register them: above about 20,000 Hz. To you they are total silence, but a dog, a cat or a bat hears them perfectly. That's exactly where a ‘silent' dog whistle lives.
Where these numbers come from
- Heffner, H.E. & Heffner, R.S. (2010). The behavioral audiogram of whitetail deer. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 127(3), EL111–EL114. doi:10.1121/1.3284546
- D'Angelo, G.J. et al. (2007). Hearing range of white-tailed deer (ABR). J. Wildlife Management, 71(4), 1238–1242. doi:10.2193/2006-326
More animals
Squirrel
It raises the alarm in ultrasound: a tip-off the predator never hears.
Pig
Its ceiling is double yours: sows and piglets talk above your limit.
Reindeer
Wide, even hearing for a landscape that's enormous, empty and silent.
Cat
It reaches nearly four times higher than you: it hears mice talking on a private channel.
Animal Ears
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