How Do Gerbils Ears Work?
The ear provides us with a large amount of information about the world around us. The brain uses this sensory information to determine what is around us, how close those objects are, what the probable size is and if there is a potential threat. All animals’ ears work in similar fashion as far as basic function, but there are great variations regarding sensitivity. A dog can hear many sounds and frequencies that humans can’t, for example. One of the more unusual creatures in the animal kingdom regarding hearing is the gerbil. Multiple studies have been conducted on the Mongolian gerbil in particular, because the middle ear is suspected to have a higher sensitivity to lower frequencies; studying how this is possible could lead to treatments for humans with hearing difficulty.
