Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2022 August 19

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August 19

Bird ears

The ossicles are use by mammalian animals to pick up very low noises. Birds seem to have good hearing. They use sound to communicate a lot. How do they listen well without ossicles? -- Toytoy (talk) 09:20, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Here is a pretty easily understandable paper: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1kp2r437 41.23.55.195 (talk) 09:52, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article is at Bird anatomy#Nervous system, but is not terribly readable. Alansplodge (talk) 21:53, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

It does, however, explicitly mention that (various) birds do have ossicles – "Ossicles within green finches, blackbirds, song thrushes, and house sparrows are proportionately shorter to those found in pheasants, Mallard ducks, and sea birds" – so Toytoy's query is based on a false premise.

Middle ear#Other animals, para 2 states:

"In reptiles, birds, and early fossil tetrapods, there is a single auditory ossicle, the columella (that is homologous with the stapes, or "stirrup" of mammals). This is connected indirectly with the eardrum via a mostly cartilaginous extracolumella and medially to the inner-ear spaces via a widened footplate in the fenestra ovalis.[5] The columella is an evolutionary derivative of the bone known as the hyomandibula in fish ancestors, a bone that supported the skull and braincase."

{The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.209.121.96 (talk) 16:32, 20 August 2022 (UTC)