Animal Ears 🦅 How animals hear
Eagle hearing range in hertz
Haliaeetus leucocephalus
Champion eyesight, ordinary ears: it catches fewer highs than you do.
In short
A Eagle hears from about 200 Hz up to 5.7 kHz, and the pitch it catches best is near 2 kHz. Animal Ears lets you take any sound of yours and hear it exactly as it would.
Surprise: an eagle hears worse than you. Its range runs from about 200 to 5,700 Hz, so it misses both the deep rumbles and every high above 5,700 Hz, where you still reach 20,000. It peaks near 2,000 Hz and that's about it. It doesn't need more: its superpower is in its eyes, able to pick out a rabbit more than a kilometre away. Run a sound through its ears and you'll hear it dim and narrow: that's how trimmed-down its world of sound is.
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 | 200 Hz |
|---|---|
| Highest it hears | 5.7 kHz |
| Hears most clearly | 2 kHz |
| What you hear | 20 Hz – 20 kHz |
Your ears vs a Eagle's
It does miss the highs you can hear, though: above about 5.7 kHz there is nothing left for it.
Audiogram
| Hertz (Hz) | Hearing threshold |
|---|---|
| 250 Hz | 52 dB |
| 500 Hz | 38 dB |
| 1 kHz | 25 dB |
| 1.5 kHz | 18 dB |
| 2 kHz | 15 dB |
| 3 kHz | 24 dB |
| 4 kHz | 38 dB |
| 5 kHz | 52 dB |
| 5.7 kHz | 62 dB |
No behavioural audiogram exists for any eagle; derived from ABR of bald eagles — peak ~2 kHz, upper limit ~5.7 kHz. ABR thresholds run high, so treat the SHAPE as accurate and absolute dB as elevated.
Can a Eagle hear things you can't?
A Eagle picks up everything from 200 Hz (the deepest) to 5.7 kHz (the highest), and hears best around 2 kHz.
It does miss the highs you can hear, though: above about 5.7 kHz there is nothing left for it.
Frequently asked questions
What sounds can a Eagle hear?
A Eagle picks up everything from 200 Hz (the deepest) to 5.7 kHz (the highest), and hears best around 2 kHz.
Can a Eagle hear things you can't?
It does miss the highs you can hear, though: above about 5.7 kHz there is nothing left for it.
How does Animal Ears make a sound like a Eagle would hear it?
Scientists have measured, pitch by pitch, the quietest volume at which a Eagle 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.
Where these numbers come from
- McGee, J. et al. (2019). Auditory performance in bald eagles and red-tailed hawks (ABR). J. Comp. Physiol. A, 205(6), 793–811. doi:10.1007/s00359-019-01367-9
- McGee, J. et al. (2022). Conservation Physiology, 10(1), coac059. doi:10.1093/conphys/coac059
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