snake




When a snake moves its tail, can you hear the sound it makes?


 The answer to this question has baffled scientists for a long time, as for decades they have struggled to figure out how snakes sense sounds while missing their outer ears. But scientists seem to be close to solving the "Invisible Snake Ears" puzzle.


A recent study published in the latest issue of "Experimental Biology" revealed that sound waves create vibrations inside the skull of a snake, so it can hear it in its inner ear.


 Neuroscientist Bruce Young of the University of Massachusetts says, commenting on the results of this study, in which he was not involved, “There has always been this myth that snakes are deaf. Previous behavioral studies have shown that snakes can actually hear, and now this study comes to add new information and take an additional step to explain how the snake hears.


The condition of the snake differs from that of the human being. In humans, sound waves travel through the air to reach the eardrum, causing thin bones and vibration of tiny hair cells inside the inner ear. These vibrations are then translated into nerve impulses that work their way to the brain.


As for snakes, they have an inner ear that is full of structures and components, but they lack an eardrum.

 Instead, the inner ear connects directly to the jawbone, which rests on the ground as the snake crawls. Study content Previous studies have shown that those vibrations traveling across the ground, such as the footsteps of a prey or a predator, are transformed into vibrations that occur at the level of the jaw bone, which transmits reverberation signals to the brain via the inner ear. However, it is not yet clear whether snakes can hear sounds traveling through the air.



Instead, Christian and colleagues used electrodes attached to the heads of these reptiles to monitor nerve activity that connects the snakes' inner ears to their brains.


 Each time a sound was released through a loudspeaker hanging over the snake's cage, the researchers measured whether the nerve was transmitting an electrical impulse, but they noticed that the snakes showed no external response to these sounds.

 They also noted that the nerve impulses of these snakes are so strong that their frequencies range between 80 and 160 Hz, which are similar to the lowest notes of a large cello violin, although the sounds exerted on the cages of these snakes were not necessarily of the type that snakes hear in the prairie and deserts.


Some amphibians, such as salamanders and frogs, miss eardrums, and you may hear the same way you hear snakes. Scientist Bruce Young says that there may be other methods that snakes use to sense vibrations in the air and on the ground.


 "We know that snakes have special sensing organs in their skin and head that may have a greater role in responding to vibrations," he added. At the moment, we have some evidence that snakes can detect vibration along their bodies.


 But this evidence is not sufficient nor does it provide the final word to provide an accurate description of how snakes sense sounds and vibrations.