Animal Ears 🐧 How animals hear
Penguin hearing range in hertz
Spheniscus humboldti
It finds its partner by voice among thousands of penguins all shouting at once.
In short
A Penguin hears from about 250 Hz up to 10 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.
The Humboldt penguin hears in air from 250 to 10,000 Hz, with its best zone at 2,000 Hz. Here's the challenge of its life: come back from the sea to a colony of thousands of near-identical birds, all calling at once, and find its partner and its chick. It solves it by voice: every call carries its own signature, and its ears are tuned right at the band where that signature lives.
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 | 250 Hz |
|---|---|
| Highest it hears | 10 kHz |
| Hears most clearly | 2 kHz |
| What you hear | 20 Hz – 20 kHz |
Your ears vs a Penguin's
It does miss the highs you can hear, though: above about 10 kHz there is nothing left for it.
Audiogram
| Hertz (Hz) | Hearing threshold |
|---|---|
| 250 Hz | 37 dB |
| 500 Hz | 64 dB |
| 1 kHz | 48 dB |
| 2 kHz | 15 dB |
| 3 kHz | 20 dB |
| 4 kHz | 18 dB |
| 6 kHz | 28 dB |
| 8 kHz | 35 dB |
| 10 kHz | 50 dB |
In-air behavioural audiogram (dB re 20 µPa), best ~15 dB at 2 kHz; the published dip at 500 Hz is flagged by the authors as possibly methodological. (Wever et al. 1969 concerns the congeneric black-footed penguin.)
Can a Penguin hear things you can't?
A Penguin picks up everything from 250 Hz (the deepest) to 10 kHz (the highest), and hears best around 2 kHz.
It does miss the highs you can hear, though: above about 10 kHz there is nothing left for it.
Frequently asked questions
What sounds can a Penguin hear?
A Penguin picks up everything from 250 Hz (the deepest) to 10 kHz (the highest), and hears best around 2 kHz.
Can a Penguin hear things you can't?
It does miss the highs you can hear, though: above about 10 kHz there is nothing left for it.
How does Animal Ears make a sound like a Penguin would hear it?
Scientists have measured, pitch by pitch, the quietest volume at which a Penguin 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
- Rößler, H., May, A. & Dähne, M. (2024). Unexpected hearing thresholds in a diving bird. Scientific Reports, 14, 30592. doi:10.1038/s41598-024-82942-2
- Wever, E.G. et al. (1969). Hearing in the blackfooted penguin. PNAS, 63(3), 676–680. doi:10.1073/pnas.63.3.676
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