Ear wiggling
Also called: Moving your ears · Auricular muscle control
Moving the outer ears using three small muscles that most mammals use to point their ears at sounds. About 1 in 5 people can wiggle their ears. Some people can learn.
How common
Can you do this?
How it works
Three small muscles attach the outer ear to the skull: one in front, one above, and one behind1. They are controlled by the facial nerve, the same nerve that runs your smile. Cats, dogs, and horses use the same muscles to swivel their ears toward a sound. Humans no longer need to. The muscles are vestigial, a leftover from ancestors who did2.
The muscles still work. About 1 in 5 people can wiggle their ears3. In one small 1995 study of 442 people, 22% could move one ear3. About 18% could move both at once3. A study in 2020 found that the muscles twitch slightly toward a sound the person is paying attention to5. The old circuit is still wired in.
The ability is partly inherited. A genetic survey by AncestryDNA reported 250 DNA markers linked to ear wiggling in data from more than 790,000 people4. It is also learnable. Many people find the muscles through motor overflow: raising the eyebrows or smiling hard pulls the scalp, and the ear muscles fire along with it. Some people learn it by years of pushing their glasses up without using their hands.
Try it
- Sit in front of a mirror and watch your ears.
- Raise your eyebrows as high as you can. Notice whether the ears lift or move back.
- Smile as wide as you can. Notice whether the ears pull up.
- Try to keep the eyebrows and mouth still while making the same pull behind the ear. This is the hard part.
- Practise for a few minutes a day. Some people who keep at it find some movement.
Is it a problem?
No. In humans these muscles have very little action1. The muscles are vestigial leftovers, so not being able to use them is the normal state for most people today, not a deficiency2. Learning to wiggle them offers nothing beyond a party trick. There is nothing to mention to a doctor here. New movement or twitching around the ear that you did not cause on purpose is a different, unrelated thing worth describing to a doctor.
History and culture
Charles Darwin discussed the ear muscles in 1871 as evidence that humans descend from animals that could point their ears2.
Sources and further material
- Wikipedia Outer ear Names the three muscles around the ear. Says that in humans they have very little action.
- popsci.com Why can some people wiggle their ears? About 1 in 5 people can wiggle their ears. Reports a small 1995 study of 442 people: 22% moved one ear, about 18% moved both.
- ancestry.com Ear Wiggling Survey of over 790,000 customers found 250 DNA markers linked to ear wiggling. Says practice explains a larger part than genes.
- PubMed Vestigial auriculomotor activity indicates the direction of auditory attention in humans Ear muscle activity was larger on the side of the sound the listener paid attention to.
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Related oddities
Ear rumbling
Up to about half of all people can make a low roar inside their own head by tensing a tiny muscle in the middle ear.
Raising one eyebrow
Lifting a single eyebrow while the other stays down. Informal estimates say 30% to 35% of people can do it without training. No study has measured how many of the rest can learn it.
Flaring your nostrils
Widening the nostrils on purpose. No study has counted how many people can do it on command. It also happens on its own during hard breathing and in strong emotion such as anger.
Darwin's tubercle
A small bump on the folded rim of the ear, which Darwin thought was the leftover tip of a pointed ancestral ear. Between 10% and 58% of people have one, depending on the population.