Random Q: Can Newts hear?

[smoothoperator]

Can newts hear? My mandarin crocodile newt doesn't seem to have any 'ear holes' haha....

 

[Abrahm]

Newts don't have earholes or tympanums (something like an external ear drum that frogs have.) They do have some of the internal structural components of hearing. Not a lot is known about their auditory abilities but it is believed that they are really only capable of hearing low frequency sounds. There is another proposed hypothesis that they can only hear changes in the ambient sound (i.e. a loud truck drives by they can sense the change when the loud noise dominates and then the change when the truck is too far away to hear.)

 

[Lasher]

There is another proposed hypothesis that they can only hear changes in the ambient sound (i.e. a loud truck drives by they can sense the change when the loud noise dominates and then the change when the truck is too far away to hear.)

Thats a new one on me, can you cite sources?

I've never observed any reaction to just sound in newts. They do take notice when the musics vibrating the pc speakers accross the desk, I figured that was the vibrations.

Frogs on the other hand are much more amusing in that respect, I'll scour my old hard drive later and see if I can find the movie of my old Dendro reticulatus dancing!

 

[Abrahm]

Thats a new one on me, can you cite sources?

Yup! I got the information directly from A Natural History of Amphibians authored by Stebbins and Cohen and published in 1995. They cite: Wever, E. G. "Sound Transmission in the Salamander Ear." Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.. 75: 529-530

The researcher was using Ambystoma and Taricha. He found that when a sound was directed at one side of the head it created vibratory motion from one side of the brain to other other stimulating papillae on both sides of the brain by moving through the cerebrospinal fluid. Sound literally goes in one ear and out the other. He hypothesized that only incident or sudden changes in sustained sounds are heard.

Of course this is a limited study with only two genera, but the authors thought it relevant in '95. I can't say how relevant it is in '08, but I could read ahead in my massive Wells amphibian tome.