Natural History Wanderings

Science Now reports on how snakes hear without ears.  Actually, snakes have inner ears but they don’t have external ear lobes. Humans hear by sound waves traveling through the air, hitting the eardrum, and causing movement in tiny bones and hair cells in the inner ear.  It has been known that snakes feel vibrations through their jawbones by having their heads’ on the ground. The Journal of Experimental Biology  reports it has just been discovered that snake jawbones’ also feel vibrations from sound waves.  The snakes’ jawbone transmits the vibrations to their inner ears which then signal their brains. Additional research is required to detect the variance in the abilities of different snake species to detect vibrations.

Read more at
Science Now Vibrating Skulls Help Snakes Hear
Journal of Experimental Biology Snakes Hear Through Skull Vibration

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