New Scientific Study Regarding Snakes "Hearing"

Hey everyone!

I was on redtailboa.net and someone posted this article about a new scientific study that is investigating the snake's ability to hear. New research indicates that even though they do not have external ears, they hear through vibrations in their jaw which then go to the inner ear. Funnily enough we just talked about this in my Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy class today. From my understanding, the jaw bone connects directly to the bones of the inner ear and thus the snake is able to hear. Just differently than you or I obviously. As the research was done with BPs I thought it particularly relevant.

Here is the link for all those interested. :)

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceno...ear.html?rss=1

This very cool, thanks for sharing! This explains why if Im moving around in my room alot they come out of their hides to check on whats going on.

i knew this already :D

Interesting but the idea is hardly new. FB Manning started experiments before I was born (hearing in rattlesnakes). I believe his article was published in the early 1920s, revisited again by an Australian scientist in the late 60s spoke about mechanoreceptors in snake skin I don't exactly recall now. I think that it has been well documented snakes 'hearing' ground born sound/vibrations for a long time it is very certain they can 'hear' much better than humans can, I believe the vibration of a mouse foot falls for many meters.

Look up the BBC film 'The Beauty of Snakes' it speaks about senses of snakes and is very well filmed and favours our scaled friends.

Hmmm... do you think snakes would like dubstep with super heavy bass since they could feel it? haha

Well, I gathered that there had been earlier studies since my professor seemed quite familiar with it this morning. Thanks for the details! I'll check out the BBC special when I get a chance.

Part of my interest in the new study was the bit about them picking up vibrations of sounds from the air and not just the ground. I would personally love to do more research on this. If only I could find a research team to jump in with. :rolleyes: -le sigh- I'm excited to see what becomes of this study a little farther down the road.

I didn't know the mechanism but I knew they picked up on ground vibrations and ground noises more than hearing through say sound waves. Makes sense that it is connected to their jaw.

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Originally Posted by SpencerShanks

Hmmm... do you think snakes would like dubstep with super heavy bass since they could feel it? haha

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No doubt lol!
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