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Party trick moves muscles that humans haven’t used for 25 million years

Your party trick might have more biological significance than you think.

Between 10 and 20 per cent of humans can wiggle their ears. Nowadays, it’s a not-so-cool party trick, but for our ancestors, it might have been a key survival skill.

We’ve likely all seen cats or dogs prick up their ears to focus their attention on certain noises. Humans have muscles in our ears, called auricular muscles, which research suggests helped humans living millions of years ago to do the same.

Scientists had previously thought these muscles became “useless” over the course of evolution, but remained used by the lucky few who can wiggle their ears.

“The exact reason these became vestigial is difficult to tell, as our ancestors lost this ability about 25 million years ago,” said Andreas Schröer, the lead author of new research from Saarland University in Germany. “One possible explanation could be that the evolutionary pressure to move the ears ceased because we became much more proficient with our visual and vocal systems.”

However, a new study has revealed that the auricular muscles appear to activate when humans are actively trying to listen to sounds. When sounds were played behind a person, the muscles contracted as if attempting to point the ears in that direction.

The findings suggest that some humans could still have use of the muscles which once helped move our primate ancestors’ ears to funnel sound.

“These muscles, particularly the superior auricular muscle, exhibit increased activity during effortful listening tasks. This suggests that these muscles are engaged not merely as a reflex but potentially as part of an attentional effort mechanism, especially in challenging auditory environments,” explained Schröer.

The research team

Read more on manchestereveningnews.co.uk
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