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It is known that snakes have an excellent sense of smell and thus cover up their poor sense of sight and hearing.
In addition, experts have known for a long time that snakes can sense sound vibrations through the ground - a kind of tactile sense through sound waves - but until now it was not known whether they can also hear sound vibrations in the air, and in particular how they react to sounds.
In a new paper published this month in PLOS ONE, researchers who looked into the matter find that snakes do indeed use hearing to help them interpret the world, debunking the erroneous myth that snakes are deaf to airborne sounds.
Their study, which involved 19 different snakes from seven species, found that not only do snakes have aerial hearing, but that different species of snakes react differently to what they hear.
Some snakes approach the sounds and some run away from them (Photo: ShutterStock)
In an article published in ScientificAmerican, the researchers explained that although seeing and tasting the air are the primary ways snakes sense their surroundings, their research showed that hearing still plays an important role in snakes' sensory abilities.
According to them - it makes sense from an evolutionary point of view.
Snakes may harm predators including power lizards, cats, dogs and other snakes.
Hearing is an important sense both for evading a madman and for avoiding injury (such as being stepped on or accidentally run over).
"For our experiments, we collaborated with the Queensland University of Technology's School of Creative Practice to set up a soundproof room and test one snake at a time. Using silence that we controlled, we played one of three sounds, each spanning a range of frequencies: 1- 150 Hz, 150-300 Hz and 300-450 Hz. For comparison, the human voice range is about 100-250 Hz, while birds chirp at about 8,000 Hz."
This is not the first time that the sense of hearing of the tentacles has been tested.
In a previous study, researchers hung rattlesnakes in a steel mesh basket and observed their restricted behavior in response to sound frequencies between 200Hz and 400Hz.
In another study, researchers implanted electrodes in the brains of partially anesthetized snakes, and detected electrical responses in response to sounds of up to 600 Hz.
But the current study is the first to examine how different snake species respond to sounds in a space where they can move freely.
The researchers also used an accelerometer to detect whether the sounds produced vibrations in the ground.
In this way they confirmed that the snakes do notice the sounds carried in the air, and not just feel the vibrations on the ground.
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Yes.
They hear, just not like us (Photo: Giphy)
Do snakes move towards or away from the sound?
Most of the snakes exhibited very different types of behaviors in the sound trials compared to the control.
Vuma pythons (or sand pythons) - a non-venomous snake common in Western Australia and in the interior of the country - significantly increased their movement in response to the sound and actually came closer to it.
They exhibited an interesting behavior called periscoping, where the snakes raise the front third of their bodies in a manner that indicates curiosity.
In contrast, three other species—the death tern, taipan, and brown tern—were more likely to move away from the sound, indicating a possible avoidance approach.
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From the study - a coastal taipan snake responds to a sound moving through the air with cautious research movements
Can snakes hear us?
The study further debunked the myth that snakes are deaf.
They can hear - just not like humans.
Snakes can only hear low frequencies, roughly below 600Hz, while most of us can hear a much wider range.
So it is likely that snakes are probably hearing muffled versions of what we are doing.
So can snakes hear us?
The frequency of the human voice is approximately 100-250 Hz, depending on gender.
The sounds played in the experiments included these frequencies, and were played at a distance of 1.2 m from the snakes at 85 decibels - which is roughly the equivalent of a loud speaking voice.
The snakes in the study responded to this sound, and many of them significantly.
The researchers conclude that it's pretty safe to say that snakes can hear people talking loudly or screaming.
That doesn't mean they can't also hear someone just talking (when the frequency of a normal conversation is about 60 decibels) - it just hasn't been sound tested at that noise level.
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