Pacific Spirit Marine Institute

Ever wish you could crush that car blasting so much bass YOUR chest thumps to the beat?

Friday, July 25, 2008

If you were an Odorrana tormota frog you could just tune that sound out by closing the canals in your ears.

The discovery that the Odorrana tormota species of frogs can close down their Eustachian tubes is being described as “Bizarre” by UofI at Urbana-Champaign researcher Albert Feng.

These little frogs live near a noisy hot springs in central China. They can tune out low frequency background noise of rushing waters to pick up the calls of mates or rivals.

The Odorrana tormota is also known as the concave-eared torrent frog.

Meanwhile…

The oh so much smarter humans go to great lengths to annoy surrounding motorists with their bass beat. They can even let the fathers of their dates know they nearing the house from 8 blocks away, thereby eliminating the need to sit in front of the house and honk!

While the Odorrana tormota would like to be able to hear the chirps of its potential mates, the reportedly more advanced species of humanoid would like to blast his girlfriends hair from her head.

I’ll assume he does this in an effort to make her less attractive to other potential mates. She will also be less attractive to other mates if she is constantly saying, “what?”

Take if from an old rock’n roller kids…turn down the bass. It will be much nicer to hear your sweetheart whisper in your ear, “I love you”, and equally as nice to hear your grandchildren’s first words.

The discovery of how these little creatures control what they hear may help researchers design better hearing aids in the future. There will be a big market for all those destroying their hearing today.

Photo thanks: Margaret Kowalczyk

Labels: Bass, China, Odorrana tormota, frogs, video