CATS! WILD TO MILD | THE SENSES

ALL EARS

All cats have excellent hearing. Their hearing is more important in hunting than their fairly poor sense of smell.

"The cat has a nervous ear, that turns this way and that. And what the cat may hear, is known but to the cat."

David Morton

High Fidelity

Domestic cats can hear much higher pitched sounds than either dogs or humans. Not surprisingly, the range of sound frequencies they can detect matches that of the sounds produced by mice and rats.

Caracal

The external ears (pinnae) of cats are very mobile and have twenty muscles to move them. The cup-shaped pinnae capture sound waves and direct them to the middle and inner ear, where sound is detected. By turning their ears toward a sound, cats can rapidly pinpoint its location.

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This page was made possible by a grant from Friskies PetCare Company and the National Science Foundation.

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Sketch of sound ranges by Rick Roe and Matt Morse © Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Foundation

Photograph of caracal from SunSITE Japan Multimedia Collection

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