Have you ever seen Dayton snakes wearing glasses? Yes, read it again, have you ever seen them wearing glasses on their eyes? Does that mean they have great eyesight? We can’t assume things just based on what we see! This means that just because snakes don’t have visible ears, it’s not true to term that they are deaf! Scientists continue to struggle to understand how snakes sense sounds. There have been many studies around this fact as to how are snakes able to hear without any ears. This post is to discuss the results of those findings and how snakes can hear and sense the predators and their preys. Read on to find out!



Dayton Snakes have got inner ear
Snakes have something called as ‘inner ear’ which helps them in sensing the motions in an extended diameter. This means that these inner ears help them in hearing the sounds and motion that happens in their surroundings. In humans, sound waves travel through the air and hit the eardrum which leads to vibration in the hair cells in inner ear. This vibration is translated into nerve impulses to allow brain to decipher the speed, distance and time of the noise. Snakes have similar structure except for eardrums as they don’t have outer ears. Their inner ears are connected to the jawbone directly. Whenever any vibration happens on the ground then snakes can sense it through their inner ears connected to jaw bones.

Sounds travel through air as well!
The next question which might be rattling in your mind could be what about the sound that travels through air? It is not easy to train snakes to respond to certain sounds. Snake catchers have an ability to do so but it needs a trick to deal with nerve pulses of the snakes. This is because they are not used to high pitched sounds in the wild. The sound waves cause vibration in the bones of the snakes and they reach only when they sense danger or opportunity. Not only this, snakes can even detect the vibrations through their skin and muscles which then transfer to their brain triggering a defence mechanism.

Snakes can hear sense
It can be said that snakes can hear only low frequency sounds. Hear might not be the correct word here! We can say that snakes can ‘sense’ through their muscles, skin, bones and pores the motion in the surrounding which sends signals to inner ears and ultimately is translated by brain. This system of hearing in snakes s very different as compared to humans. They have apparatus set in their brains but the same is triggered in a different manner.

Conclusion
So, would it be right to term that snakes can’t hear? The answer is NO! Snakes have their own biological features to listen and react to the noise around. They dance on the tunes of snake charmer and are swift enough to attack their preys. Frogs also lack eardrums like snakes, but they too are responsive to the surroundings. Snakes have a special feature to sense noises arising from wider ranges both through ground and air!

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