Animal+Hearing

= Animal Hearing = Some animals can hear higher frequencies than humans can, thus they can hear more. This is why animals can hear things like dog whistles, and we can't hear them. In all, animals can hear differently than humans in the way that they can hear different frequencies.

This topic relates to sound because it deals with how the animals hear and understand the different sound frequencies. The difference between hearing in humans and animals is also often visible externally. For example some animals (ex. birds) lack external ears/pinnas, but on the inside of the ear th structure is the same. Although birds have no pinnas they have middle ears and inner ears similar to humans, and like humans, hear best at the frequencies around 2,000 to 4,000 Hz. All mammals (the animals most closely related to the human) have outer ears/pinnas. Many mammals have the ability to move the pinna to help with localization of sounds. Foxes, for example, have large bowl shaped pinnas which can be moved to help locate distant or faint sounds. In addition to sound localization, some animals are able to manipulate their pinnas to regulate body temperature. Elephants do this by using their huge pinnas as fans and for heat exchange.
 * **Species** || **Approximate Range (Hz)** ||
 * human || 64-23,000 ||
 * dog || 67-45,000 ||
 * cat || 45-64,000 ||
 * cow || 23-35,000 ||
 * horse || 55-33,500 ||
 * sheep || 100-30,000 ||
 * rabbit || 360-42,000 ||
 * rat || 200-76,000 ||
 * mouse || 1,000-91,000 ||
 * gerbil || 100-60,000 ||
 * guinea pig || 54-50,000 ||
 * hedgehog || 250-45,000 ||
 * raccoon || 100-40,000 ||
 * ferret || 16-44,000 ||
 * opossum || 500-64,000 ||
 * chinchilla || 90-22,800 ||
 * bat || 2,000-110,000 ||
 * beluga whale || 1,000-123,000 ||
 * elephant || 16-12,000 ||
 * porpoise || 75-150,000 ||
 * goldfish || 20-3,000 ||
 * catfish || 50-4,000 ||
 * tuna || 50-1,100 ||
 * bullfrog || 100-3,000 ||
 * tree frog || 50-4,000 ||
 * canary || 250-8,000 ||
 * parakeet || 200-8,500 ||
 * cockatiel || 250-8,000 ||
 * owl || 200-12,000 ||
 * chicken || 125-2,000 ||



Different animals hear different levels of sound for different reasons. A case could be made that bats have the best hearing among mammals, because they hear the echoes from the high frequency sounds they make, in order to navigate and find food. Most birds have excellent hearing as singing is such an important part of their behavior, but it would be very hard to compare bird hearing to mammal hearing. Likewise many insects rely on sound, but that is a completely different process than hearing in birds or mammals.

Melanie Sunderland

[] [] [|http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Do_all_animals_hear_sound_in_the_same_way_as_humans#ixzz1xmRJWxwj]