Animal Ears 🪰 How animals hear
Fly hearing range in hertz
Aedes aegypti
It can't hear at a distance: its antennae feel the air a wing moves nearby.
In short
A Fly hears from about 80 Hz up to 800 Hz, and the pitch it catches best is near 380 Hz. Animal Ears lets you take any sound of yours and hear it exactly as it would.
Flies and mosquitoes don't hear the way you do: they feel the air moving very close by, with feathery antennae that vibrate like fine hairs. Their best zone is around 380 Hz, which is exactly the buzz of wings beating beside them. Beyond a few centimetres, their world of sound runs out. (This curve uses the mosquito, which is far better studied, as its scientific stand-in.)
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 | 80 Hz |
|---|---|
| Highest it hears | 800 Hz |
| Hears most clearly | 380 Hz |
| What you hear | 20 Hz – 20 kHz |
Your ears vs a Fly's
It does miss the highs you can hear, though: above about 0.8 kHz there is nothing left for it.
Audiogram
| Hertz (Hz) | Hearing threshold |
|---|---|
| 80 Hz | 35 dB |
| 150 Hz | 20 dB |
| 230 Hz | 10 dB |
| 300 Hz | 5 dB |
| 380 Hz | 2 dB |
| 450 Hz | 6 dB |
| 550 Hz | 15 dB |
| 700 Hz | 28 dB |
| 800 Hz | 38 dB |
A mosquito is used as a documented acoustic proxy (housefly hearing is poorly characterised); near-field flagellar hearing via Johnston's organ, tuned ~380 Hz. Detection-band-derived; dB relative/approximate.
Can a Fly hear things you can't?
A Fly picks up everything from 80 Hz (the deepest) to 800 Hz (the highest), and hears best around 380 Hz.
It does miss the highs you can hear, though: above about 0.8 kHz there is nothing left for it.
Frequently asked questions
What sounds can a Fly hear?
A Fly picks up everything from 80 Hz (the deepest) to 800 Hz (the highest), and hears best around 380 Hz.
Can a Fly hear things you can't?
It does miss the highs you can hear, though: above about 0.8 kHz there is nothing left for it.
How does Animal Ears make a sound like a Fly would hear it?
Scientists have measured, pitch by pitch, the quietest volume at which a Fly 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
- Göpfert, M.C., Briegel, H. & Robert, D. (1999). Mosquito hearing… in Aedes aegypti. J. Exp. Biol., 202, 2727–2738. doi:10.1242/jeb.202.20.2727
- Göpfert, M.C. & Robert, D. (2000). Nanometre-range acoustic sensitivity in mosquitoes. Proc. R. Soc. B, 267, 453–458. doi:10.1098/rspb.2000.1021
More animals
Honeybee
It can't hear at a distance: it feels the air vibrating with its antennae, centimetres away.
Dragonfly
No ears at all: it reads the wind with fine hairs and antennae as it flies.
Sea turtle
It hears underwater and only lows: the highs go straight past it.
Shark
Only lows interest it: a wounded fish thrashing hundreds of metres away.
Animal Ears
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