Can Butterflies Hear Sounds?

With how small the butterflies are, you can imagine how tiny their ears will be. However, butterflies can hear sounds, unlike a lot of assumptions about their inability to catch noises.

It was not until 1912 that scientists managed to identify a butterfly’s ears. Over time, they also figured out how the butterfly’s hearing worked.

You will be as surprised as we were to know butterflies hear with their wings.

What you will learn after reading this article:

• The structure of butterfly ears

• How hearing range of a butterfly differs from that of a human

• Butterflies can hear humans’ conversation

• How butterflies react to what they hear

Butterflies Really Can Hear

For a long time, people have been under the impression that butterfly ears are non-existent and hearing is never part of their activities.

However, in the early years of the 19th century, scientists discovered that butterflies were never deaf.

Full research was carried out and finished by Kathleen M. Lucas, James F. C. Windmill, Jayne E. Yack, and Daniel Robert from the University of Bristol on how butterflies and how much they can hear.

They first acknowledged and identified the anatomy of butterfly ears before going deeper into the function of every single part and determining a range of 500 Hz to 6 kHz for butterfly hearing.

Compared to the range of 20 Hz – 20 kHz that humans can pick up, we can tell butterflies hear things very differently from us.

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The Butterfly Ear

Butterfly ears are distributed at the base of their wings. The structure is extremely simple in that the ear looks like a piece of overstretched rubber instead of our human ears.

It is called a “tympanal membrane” and adorns an oval shape with a rather eccentric dome. Its main purpose is to receive and convert sound waves into different signals so the nerve cells can pick up and comprehend.

With laser beams, the scientists found that the outer area of a butterfly’s ear vibrates under low-pitched sounds, while high-pitched sounds have a more visible effect on the entire area of the ear.

That means butterflies are likely capable of differentiating between low and high noises.

The ears are on their wings and function through vibrations, which might be associated with why the wings sometimes flutter even though they are peacefully perching on a flower.

Check more: Can Butterflies See Their Wings?

The Hearing Range Of A Butterfly

As different areas in a butterfly’s ear react differently to the intensity and pitch of noises and the high-pitched sounds cause the entire ear to vibrate, scientists suggested that the higher the pitches, the more sensitive the butterfly is.

Recordings of the nerves support that idea.

The most ideal hearing range of butterflies is 1,000 – 5,000 Hz for the low frequency and 5,000 – 6,000 Hz for the high frequency. Everything in this range will be converted into signals that the butterfly nerves can transfer and thus comprehend.

Can Butterflies Hear Humans?

Although humans hear sounds in a wider range than butterflies do, the conversations and common activities we conduct every day are within 100 – 4,000 Hz, so butterflies can hear what humans say or do perfectly well.

It also proved why we hardly ever creep up on a butterfly. Our regular activities fall into the high frequencies that butterfly ears can catch and process.

So, butterflies are extremely sensitive to the noise of our movements and they will try to escape immediately.

How Do Butterflies React To The Sound They Hear?

Lucas shared that moth ears are meant to respond with their simple structure. So, as soon as a noise falls into a certain segment within their audible range, their first response is to escape regardless of the noise’s frequency.

Furthermore, Lucas explained that the low pitches usually resemble the sound of flapping wings. When the butterfly is under the impression that the bird is about to attack, it instinctively turns and flies away from the scene.

Meanwhile, high pitches indicate higher frequencies (bird songs, for example) and tell the butterfly to move into a resting posture and keep itself hidden. Its wings will close and conceal the colorful shades we often see.

The Takeaways

Contrary to what most people believe, butterflies can hear various kinds of sounds with the hearing membranes on their wings’ base.

They can also distinguish a quite broad range of frequencies for those sound waves and utilize the signals for their routine and survival.

If you have seen more interesting behavior from butterflies, don’t hesitate to share your stories with us so more people will know better about these magical creatures!