Did you hear that? Chances are you didn’t -but your dog did. Many creatures in the animal kingdom put us to shame with their highly adapted hearing skills.

An animal’s senses are crucial to its way of life, and ultimately, to its survival. A heightened sense of smell means the shark can track down its prey based on a single drop of blood, a hawk’s incredibly sharp eyesight means it can spot a tiny dormouse from high up in the sky, and a rabbit knows it’s time to run when it senses the vibrations of its group stomping the ground with their hind legs.

A creature’s hearing is just as vital to its survival, and plays a large part in both hunting prey and escaping predators, but also aids unique ways of communicating with its companions and creates awareness of its environment.

It’s not exactly a hidden talent, considering the size of its ears, but a
fennec fox’s sense of hearing is incredible in the way it is put to use. They are the smallest foxes in the world, but have the biggest ears relative to body size. Their extremely sensitive hearing apparatus is used to listen for small prey scurrying in the sand.

The ears stand to attention at all times, reaching 15 centimetres (six inches) in length. The auditory bullae, the hollow structure of the middle ear, is enlarged in fennec foxes, allowing them to rely mostly on their bat-like ears for hunting and locating prey, communicating with each other, and evading predation.

The dolphin uses echolocation to find its prey

The friendly-looking dolphin is known for its intelligence and approachability. It has long fascinated researchers because of its social behaviour, and its large, highly developed brain. Its auditory cortex, in particular, is highly complex and allows for a hearing range between 30,000 and 160,000 hertz.

Dolphins are also quick at processing sounds, and use a technique called echolocation, which works like a biological sonar. Dolphins emit high-pitched noises and interpret the echoes bouncing off nearby objects to understand their environment. They use this skill to locate and identify nearby prey, even detecting creatures buried in sand. Dolphins also have intricate communication techniques, and can produce and discern a wide range of noises and vocalisations.

Dogs are always aware of their environment

Dogs aren’t just good at hearing the words ‘walkies’ and ‘treats’- they have an incredible hearing range of 60 to 45,000 hertz compared to our 20 to 20,000 hertz. This is why dog whistles produce an ultrasonic sound that’s not detectable to humans as it’s too high, exceeding our maximum of 20,000 hertz. It’s not just the range of sounds that sets dogs’ hearing apart; they can hear things from a maximum distance that beats ours by four times. This is why Fido is already at the door when you get home while your partner is still oblivious of your return – he could hear your car coming a block away.

In addition, dogs can move their ears to better localise a sound, thanks to the fact that they have 18 muscles in the part of their ears called the pinna, or ear flap. You may have seen Fido flex these muscles when he’s trying to decide whether he’s going to listen to your command, or keep rolling around in the mud.

“Dogs can move their ears to better localise a sound, thanks to 18 muscles in each ear flap”.

The elephant can hear infrasonic sound waves

An elephant’s sense of hearing is incredible. They are capable of hearing infrasonic sound waves, which are too low for us to detect. Their range isn’t all that impressive -roughly between 16 and 12,000 hertz, compared to our 20 to 20,000 hertz.

However, they’re capable of recognising calls and voices from other elephants, and use their hearing in a social manner. They can also use their enormous ears to funnel in sound waves, the way you would if you cupped your hand around your ear, but on a much larger scale.

Bats use their adapted hearing to see in the dark

Bats will spend almost their entire lives living in the dark, so like owls, they have adapted their hearing to hunt effectively at night. But instead of the owl’s tactic, they use echolocation like dolphins, and emit high-pitched noises to deduce the location of their prey based on the sound that bounces back.

Bats’ prey is much smaller than dolphins’ as they mainly feed on insects, so their hunting techniques require far more precision. They can deduce the location of an insect from as far as ten metres (33 feet) away. The spotted bat, in particular, has incredible hearing, and its iconic ears are a giveaway of that talent. These translucent ears are vulnerable to tears and cuts so the bats close their ears with every wing stroke.

An owl’s ears are finely tuned for precision hunting

Ever wondered how it was possible the wizards and witches at Hogwarts could just call for their owls and they’d appear on their arms within a matter of seconds? There may be a tiny sprinkling of science mixed in with the magic! Owls have a highly adapted auditory system. Unlike the other animals mentioned here, the owl’s hearing range is not all that different from a human’s – it is their precision that sets them apart.

They can discern the position of their prey by deducing what ear the sound they’re hearing reaches first, and how long it takes for that sound to reach the other ear. They measure this time with extreme precision, down to 30 millionths of a second. Based on this calculation, they turn their head until the sound reaches both ears simultaneously, and then swoop in for the kill.