Presenting Some Fun Facts on Hearing

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• Fish do not have ears, but they can hear pressure changes through ridges on their body

• The ear’s malleus, incus and stapes (otherwise known as the hammer, anvil and stirrup) are the smallest bones in the human body. All three together could fit together on a penny

• Sound travels at the speed of 1,130 feet per second, or 770 miles per hour

• Dogs can hear much higher frequencies than humans

• Crickets have their hearing organs in their knees

• Ears not only help you hear but also aid in balance

• Snakes hear through the jaw bone and through a traditional inner ear. In essence, snakes have two distinct hearing mechanisms, which helps them hear and catch prey

• Sitting in front of the speakers at a rock concert can expose you to 120 decibels, which will begin to damage hearing in only 7 1/2 minutes

• Male mosquitoes hear with thousands of tiny hairs growing on their antennae

• The inner ear is no larger than a pencil eraser in circumference

• Your hearing can be damaged permanently even after a single incident of exposure to extremely loud noise (shotgun blast, explosion, etc.)

• Your ears never stop hearing, even when you sleep. Your brain just ignores incoming sounds

• Ears keep growing – Throughout your lifetime, your outer ear never stops growing

• The roar that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear

• A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue

• When you go up to a high elevation, your ears pop. This is because your eustachian tubes are equalizing the pressure between the outside air and the inside of your ear

• In World War 1 parrots were kept on the Eiffel Tower in Paris because of their remarkable sense of hearing. When the parrots heard enemy aircraft, they warned everyone of the approaching danger long before any human ear would hear it