“A Few Sizes Too Big”: 50 Animals That Were Gifted With Enormous Ears

Many animals with large ears have exceptional hearing. A serval, a type of African wildcat, can hear smaller prey like rodents and frogs wiggling their way underground. Koalas use their excellent hearing to detect predators and communicate with others through the dense, leafy foliage that often surrounds them. Kangaroos have very sensitive ears that can rotate, which helps them monitor their surroundings, even while they’re eating or resting.

Besides, having enormous hearing organs can provide other adaptational benefits. Animals like African elephants, English lops (species of rabbits), and American Brahmans (a breed of beef cattle) use their ears to regulate body temperature. The large area dense with blood vessels encourages the loss of excess body heat, providing a much-needed cooling effect.

Moreover, the Basset Hound’s lengthy ears are designed to act as scent-catching traps, carrying smells toward the dog’s highly sensitive snout. This unique feature secures them the title of “the second-best sense of smell” among all canine breeds. Also, bats use their hearing organs to aid in their flight navigation. They capture a large amount of sound waves that allow them to maneuver through the dark with precision, making darkness irrelevant. Similarly, Aardvarks’ enormous ears compensate for their bad eyesight to better suit their nocturnal lives.

Overall, the title of the biggest ears belongs to the African elephant, as they can grow to be six feet long and four feet wide. This species of elephant can feel vibrations underground through their feet, detecting sounds of stampeding animals from miles away, helping to recognize the approaching danger.

However, relative to their size, elephant ears are about one-sixth of their entire body. If we consider this metric, then the biggest hearing organs belong to a small rodent called the long-eared jerboa. Its sound receivers are two-thirds as long as its body, making it literally all ears. Jerboas are inhabitants of deserts, and the larger ear surface helps cool down their little bodies in the scorching sun.

Although they provide many advantages, the presence of big sound receivers can sometimes be inconvenient for their owners. For example, a Basset Hound’s ears are prone to infections, so ear hygiene is crucial for the health and comfort of these dogs. For long-eared bats, large hearing organs increase air resistance, forcing them to use more energy while flying compared to other species with smaller ears. Also, elephants living in forests can get their sound receivers caught in foliage. That’s why breeds of forest elephants usually have smaller oval-shaped ears to adapt to living in cooler, foliage dense environments.

With their impressive ears, animals can hear many sounds that humans are not capable of. Elephants' ability to hear infrasound waves allows them to hear even the movement of clouds. They can pick up when the rain clouds are gathering and know when to head for water sources. Pigeons can perceive sounds that are as low as 0.5 Hz, allowing them to detect distant storms, earthquakes, and even volcanoes. Moreover, many mammals and insects can hear the sounds made by plants. Studies show that greenery emits different sounds depending on the species and the type of stress (e.g., drought or cutting). Cats and dogs are also able to hear these sounds, so next time your pets hear something you don't, it’s possible that your plants are just mingling with them.

Even though the African elephant and long-eared jerboa have the biggest ears, they can’t be considered to have the best hearing. Actually, it’s quite impossible to nominate one animal that perceives sounds the best, as some can hear high frequencies better while others apprehend lower ones more efficiently.

The widest and highest-frequency hearing animal is the greater wax moth, which perceives sounds up to 300,000 Hz. It’s skilled at identifying bat echolocation waves and avoiding being eaten by them. As soon as they hear a predator, they change their flying direction into an evasive pattern, while some even close their wings and drop to the ground until the danger is gone. The lowest sound-hearing animal is a pigeon and wolves, cats, and dogs are known to be the most sensitive listeners, being able to pick up sounds at low volumes at long distances.

The workings of animal hearing are truly extraordinary, and there’s undeniably so much more that could be discovered and understood.