Animal Ears 🐍 How animals hear
Snake hearing range in hertz
Python regius
No eardrum, no ears: it listens to your footsteps by resting its jaw on the ground.
In short
A Snake hears from about 80 Hz up to 1 kHz, and the pitch it catches best is near 160 Hz. Animal Ears lets you take any sound of yours and hear it exactly as it would.
A snake has no eardrum and no outer ear, so sound travelling through the air barely reaches it: it's left with a narrow, low band, 80 to 1,000 Hz. Its trick is a different one. It rests its jaw against the ground and vibrations travel up through the bone to its inner ear. It literally listens to your footsteps with its face. That's why a snake can ignore a shout and bolt because somebody stamped three metres away.
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 | 1 kHz |
| Hears most clearly | 160 Hz |
| What you hear | 20 Hz – 20 kHz |
Your ears vs a Snake's
It does miss the highs you can hear, though: above about 1 kHz there is nothing left for it.
Audiogram
| Hertz (Hz) | Hearing threshold |
|---|---|
| 40 Hz | 96 dB |
| 80 Hz | 80 dB |
| 120 Hz | 78 dB |
| 160 Hz | 78 dB |
| 200 Hz | 82 dB |
| 300 Hz | 90 dB |
| 400 Hz | 98 dB |
| 600 Hz | 106 dB |
| 800 Hz | 113 dB |
| 1 kHz | 119 dB |
Snakes lack an eardrum; thresholds are airborne dB re 20 µPa but real detection is dominated by substrate/bone-conducted vibration, so the airborne EQ understates true low-frequency sensitivity.
Can a Snake hear things you can't?
A Snake picks up everything from 80 Hz (the deepest) to 1 kHz (the highest), and hears best around 160 Hz.
It does miss the highs you can hear, though: above about 1 kHz there is nothing left for it.
Frequently asked questions
What sounds can a Snake hear?
A Snake picks up everything from 80 Hz (the deepest) to 1 kHz (the highest), and hears best around 160 Hz.
Can a Snake hear things you can't?
It does miss the highs you can hear, though: above about 1 kHz there is nothing left for it.
How does Animal Ears make a sound like a Snake would hear it?
Scientists have measured, pitch by pitch, the quietest volume at which a Snake 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
- Christensen, C.B. et al. (2012). Hearing with an atympanic ear… in the royal python. J. Exp. Biol., 215, 331–342. doi:10.1242/jeb.062539
- Wever, E.G. (1978). The Reptile Ear. Princeton University Press.
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