Cat's ears

[LauraDO]

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This is totally off topic but I was just curious what the purpose of the extra folds of skin near the bottom of a cat's ear?

Just a pure curiousity question from a pre-med

 

[eaglemeag]

Dogs have them too, and I was taught (by Dr. Kumar at Tufts) that nobody has found any real significance to them (yet). Would love to hear any other opinions to the contrary!

 

[Angelo84]

From my audition class in undergrad we learned that the pinna (the outside part of the ear you can see) is responsible for localizing sound and funnelling it to the ear drum as well as amplifying it. Each bump and groove in a person's ear helps direct a certain band of frequencies I would think that it is similar in animals--maybe that fold has something to do with very high frequency sounds as we do not have them?

So that is my extrapolation from a human audition class! Maybe we should post this question in the audiology section of SDN?

 

[LauraDO]

Yep you are right dogs do have them as well.

Good idea about posting over on audiology, hmmm...interesting...the search continues, thanks for your input