Can you learn to wiggle your ears?

It's a party trick toggling your ears. You can either do them naturally or not.

Is this true? Would you be able to wiggle your ears if you trained yourself?

The good news for anyone who wants to learn to move their ears at will is that it will probably take a lot of practice and training.

It has been shown that it can be done. In a recent study, we gave people visual feedback to help them train their ear muscles.

Which animal has the biggest ears?

The purpose of the research was to see if audio stimuli could encourage ear movements in the 28 people in the study. The findings may be the first step towards humans being able to use voluntary ear movements.

Animals can move their ears at will to better focus on certain sounds. This ability can be used to find food and avoid predatory animals. The auricularis superior, the auricularis anterior and the anterior auricular are all in the human ear.

The external part of the ear in humans and other mammals is known as the pinna, and it allows them to focus more on "auditory or visual stimuli."

Humans have retained a vestigial pinna-orienting system that has persisted as a "neural fossil" in the brain, according to a hypothesis by Strauss.

Wisdom teeth and coccyx are examples of vestigial structures that have lost function.

According to an article published by Washington State University, "scientists are still debating why we still have a coccyx, with some saying it's crucial and others saying it's redundant." Wisdom teeth, which were once used by our ancestors to chew rough food, are no longer needed, but still cause millions of people to experience pain if they get infections or erupt past the gumline.

Humans may have become less skilled at moving our ears in the direction of specific sounds because it is not necessary for survival, Stauss suggested.

Other species rely on the tuning of the acoustic radar more than we do. Humans lost this ability in evolution. Ear movements were associated with the tuning of an acoustic radar system which helped our ancestors locate threats.

His research supports the idea that our capacity to perform this function has becomefossilized.

The vestigial movements of muscles around the ear show the direction of sounds. Our ancient attentional system is coupled to our ancient muscle activations.

According to the results of the research, we all have the ability to move or wiggle our ears, and it can be done by sound. The movements are barely noticed.

Why some people can wiggle their ears

Some people have quirks that make them wiggle their ears more easily than others.

Strong muscles around the ear help.

A 1949 study in the journal Hereditas suggests that someone is more likely to be able to wiggle their ears. Almost three in four people who could move their ears had a parent who could do it.

Is it possible for someone to learn to wiggle their ears if they are willing to work?

"Maybe everyone can learn that," he added.

The original article was published on Live Science on March 31, 2012