Until some time ago, researchers believed that most snakes could only sense the reverberation of sounds in the ground. This means that they would not be able to hear what was going on around them. However, a research group at the University of Queensland, Australia, came across innovative and very interesting data on the subject.
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Scientists have noticed that snakes are able not only to hear, but also to react to everything that occurs in the environment in which they live. But how is that possible if snakes don’t have an external ear? Understand the subject better.
Snakes can hear you; Be careful with what you say
“Since snakes don’t have external ears, people normally think they are deaf and can only feel vibrations through the ground and in their bodies,” said researcher Christina Zdenek, who is part of UQ’s School of Biological Sciences.
To analyze the snakes’ hearing capacity, the scientists played some soundtracks in an acoustically prepared environment. From this, they observed what would be the reactions of the animals on the subject.
“Our research – the first of its kind using non-anesthetized, free-moving snakes – found that they react to sound waves traveling through the air and possibly to human voices. […] We played a sound that produced vibrations in the ground, while the other two were just aerial. This meant that we were able to test both types of ‘hearing’ – tactile hearing through the scales on the snakes’ belly and airborne hearing through the inner ear.”
How did the study work?
In all, 19 snakes were used in the research and the reactions were different for each type of animal studied. Only one of the snakes, the woma python, moved in the direction of the noise, while the others moved away from the source of the noise.
Taipans were more likely to back away and assume a defensive posture. This may explain part of the behavior of animals in the wild.
