Animal Ears 🪲 How animals hear
Dragonfly hearing range in hertz
Anax junius
No ears at all: it reads the wind with fine hairs and antennae as it flies.
In short
A Dragonfly hears from about 10 Hz up to 500 Hz, and the pitch it catches best is near 100 Hz. Animal Ears lets you take any sound of yours and hear it exactly as it would.
A dragonfly has no ears: it doesn't hear, strictly speaking. What it does is read the air. Wind-sensitive hairs and antennae tell it how air is flowing over its body, and with that it corrects its flight in thousandths of a second while chasing prey. What you'll hear here is an illustration of that low-frequency ‘touch', not a sound the dragonfly genuinely hears.
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 | 10 Hz |
|---|---|
| Highest it hears | 500 Hz |
| Hears most clearly | 100 Hz |
| What you hear | 20 Hz – 20 kHz |
Your ears vs a Dragonfly's
Yes: it picks up rumbles so deep you would, at most, feel them in your chest, down to about 10 Hz. Your floor is 20 Hz. It does miss the highs you can hear, though: above about 0.5 kHz there is nothing left for it.
Audiogram
| Hertz (Hz) | Hearing threshold |
|---|---|
| 10 Hz | 20 dB |
| 30 Hz | 15 dB |
| 60 Hz | 12 dB |
| 100 Hz | 10 dB |
| 150 Hz | 12 dB |
| 200 Hz | 16 dB |
| 300 Hz | 24 dB |
| 500 Hz | 35 dB |
Dragonflies have NO ears and no true airborne pressure hearing; they rely on mechanoreception (wind-sensitive hairs, antennal airflow sensing). NOT an audiogram — an illustrative low-frequency mechanoreception band with relative, approximate dB.
Can a Dragonfly hear things you can't?
A Dragonfly picks up everything from 10 Hz (the deepest) to 500 Hz (the highest), and hears best around 100 Hz.
Yes: it picks up rumbles so deep you would, at most, feel them in your chest, down to about 10 Hz. Your floor is 20 Hz. It does miss the highs you can hear, though: above about 0.5 kHz there is nothing left for it.
Frequently asked questions
What sounds can a Dragonfly hear?
A Dragonfly picks up everything from 10 Hz (the deepest) to 500 Hz (the highest), and hears best around 100 Hz.
Can a Dragonfly hear things you can't?
Yes: it picks up rumbles so deep you would, at most, feel them in your chest, down to about 10 Hz. Your floor is 20 Hz. It does miss the highs you can hear, though: above about 0.5 kHz there is nothing left for it.
How does Animal Ears make a sound like a Dragonfly would hear it?
Scientists have measured, pitch by pitch, the quietest volume at which a Dragonfly 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.
Infrasound
Sounds so deep your ears no longer register them: below about 20 Hz. Rather than hearing them, you'd feel a tremor in your chest, like a heavy lorry going past. Elephants and pigeons do sense them, even from miles away.
Where these numbers come from
- Yack, J.E. (2004). The structure and function of auditory chordotonal organs in insects. Microscopy Research and Technique, 63, 315–337. doi:10.1002/jemt.20051
- Piersanti, S. et al. (2020). The antennal pathway of dragonfly nymphs. Insects, 11(12), 886. doi:10.3390/insects11120886
More animals
Honeybee
It can't hear at a distance: it feels the air vibrating with its antennae, centimetres away.
Fly
It can't hear at a distance: its antennae feel the air a wing moves nearby.
Dragonfish
A listener from the abyss: we know so little that this is an honest hypothesis.
Snake
No eardrum, no ears: it listens to your footsteps by resting its jaw on the ground.
Animal Ears
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