How do elaphants hear?

Answer 1

Elaphant's have ears that they can use to hear things.

Breakiing News:

It was reported in 2007 by a Stanford research associate Caitlin O'connell that elephants can hear through their feet. Yes, that's right...through their feet! Relying upon sound waves that travel within the surface of the ground rather than sound waves heard through the air. Until this discovery, scientists understanding of seismic communication was limited largely to smaller creatures such as rodents and insects. O'connell, an entymologist who was invited to study elephants in Ethiopia, was studying the large mammals to help farmers with the problem of elephants eating their entire field. While observing these elephants she noticed certain oddities about the way elephants seemed to listen. Normally, elephants hold their big floppy ears out like a parabola and scan them back and forth. But, when listening for vocalizations and far off noises these elephants would remain motionless, lean forward putting weight on their front legs, sometimes even lifting up one of their front feet. All of these elephants would do this simultaneously, which struck O'connell as far too coordinated to be coincidental. This discovery has led O'connell to research that indicates that elephants have a whole "modality of communication" not thought about by science until this discovery.

Elephants also hear with their ears which, because of their size, allow them to hear infrasound as well as make such sounds. Researchers from the University of Sussex in Brighton along with the Ambroseli Elephant Research Project have suggested this ability to communicate with infrasound is not so important to elephants and the ability most likely comes from their size.

Answer 2

Elephants have excellent hearing, with ears specially adapted to pick up low-frequency sounds. They can detect sounds in the infrasound range, below human hearing capabilities, allowing them to communicate over long distances and sense oncoming threats like predators or rival elephants. Their ears can also help regulate body temperature.