• Question: A different animals can hear different ranges of sound which animal can hear the biggest range?

    Asked by charlyjoy to Charlotte, Jo, Kevin, Louise, Valeria on 13 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Kevin Mahon

      Kevin Mahon answered on 13 Jun 2012:

      This question required me to do a lot of researching!

      While from what I’ve read, it is difficult to establish a definate ‘range’ of sounds for an animal (due to the need to train an animal to respond to sounds first to ensure they can hear them), there are some good estimates I found on this webpage that compiled a lot of the literature on the subject.

      http://www.lsu.edu/deafness/HearingRange.html

      The biggest approximate range seems to be thebeluga whale (1,000-123,000Hz) which is impressive when compared to humans (20-20,000Hz). I also read elsewhere that the Noctuid Moth has a hearing range of 1,000 and 240,000Hz, but I can’t seem to find much evidence to back it up…!

      I will be the first to admit this is not my area of expertise however!

    • Photo: Joanna Cruden

      Joanna Cruden answered on 13 Jun 2012:

      If you compare the hearing range of different animals to humans it is quite wide and may explain why some of our pets react to some voices and tones and ignore others! I have found a list and copied and pasted below the ranges of various animals including humans:

      Species Approximate Range (Hz)
      human 64-23,000
      dog 67-45,000
      cat 45-64,000
      cow 23-35,000
      horse 55-33,500
      sheep 100-30,000
      rabbit 360-42,000
      rat 200-76,000
      mouse 1,000-91,000
      gerbil 100-60,000
      guinea pig 54-50,000
      hedgehog 250-45,000
      raccoon 100-40,000
      ferret 16-44,000
      opossum 500-64,000
      chinchilla 90-22,800
      bat 2,000-110,000
      beluga whale 1,000-123,000
      elephant 16-12,000
      porpoise 75-150,000
      goldfish 20-3,000
      catfish 50-4,000
      tuna 50-1,100
      bullfrog 100-3,000
      tree frog 50-4,000
      canary 250-8,000
      parakeet 200-8,500
      cockatiel 250-8,000
      owl 200-12,000
      chicken 125-2,000

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