Ancient whales had average hearing

Yes, ancient whales' hearing was different from modern day whale hearing. Over the years, they developed an acute sense of hearing specializing in either high frequency sounds or low frequency sounds. A report published on June 8 claimed that their ancestors heard sounds that were somewhere in the middle of those two frequency ranges.

A CT scanner was used on two 45 million year old fossils of whales that were unearthed in Togo. It revealed that the inner ear bones were not as developed as modern whale ears, although they possessed some components of modern whale ears.


This new information debunked a controversial theory stating that ancient whales already had either high frequency or low frequency hearing. As it turns out, it is neither.

An ancient whale.