Can Snakes hear?

Around the world, in how many countries human(s) depend on snakes to meet their ends?  Mostly in India (and a few more countries). For some illiterate village people, snake charming was a profession in India. Even now we can see them here and there (it’s against law). Lately, I happened to see one snake charming video in the Internet where that guy plays the traditional musical instrument to make the snake ‘dance’. Among some comments posted by some people, I read something like this too “you fool, snakes cannot hear” I accept the fact that this charmer is performing this act since it was his tradition and not because he has extensive knowledge about snake’s hearing abilities. But still, are snakes deaf?

I remember that I studied that way in my science class in my schools. Snakes do not have external ears and hence they cannot hear. They sense the vibrations on the ground and they have a special tongue which is capable of sensing on ground, air and water. The end. This is where the science or may be some section of the scientists went wrong – instead of accepting the fact that ‘we do not know’ they made that as a statement. Thus this ‘fact’ became part of biology/science text book.

But there were some biologists and scientists who did not hesitate to say ‘we do not know’ and nobody cared them. Who cares those doesn’t know something? But they were the people who were standing at the right side.

 Somehow, some biologists/scientists got attracted to the jaw of the snakes. Snakes have special jaws which help them swallow food bigger than their (mouth) size. But now it is known that these jaws have got ability to pick up sounds. And this mechanism works like two ears and hence they can hear in stereo. 

Snakes can hear better when they keep their jaw on the ground but this does not mean that they are deaf if they lift their head off the ground. If we keep a paper in front of our mouth and speak or if we touch the cone paper of a speaker when the speaker is working, we can clearly feel the vibrations. So, snake too should be able to pick up vibrations travelling via air, though it can do that better when grounded. From the jawbones, these vibrations go to the inner ear (to the cochlea, to be precise) and nerves carry this to brain.

Some earlier studies showed that snakes do not respond much to louder sounds. Now the same is interpreted as a defense mechanism exhibited by snakes. It is like soldiers lying on the ground when they hear a ‘bang’.  When they ‘hear’ such big sounds, instead of being panic, may be snakes prefer to stay motionless and make use of all its gifted sensing abilities, who knows?

At least snakes understood what Lord Voldemort said, didn’t they?