[Destrega2002]

I have 2 dumbo rats and one non-dumbo.... I watch the non-dumbo react to sounds and everything, and his ears turn towards whatever interests him... whereas... the dumbo rats obviously can't. The thing I have ALWAYS wondered... was if dumbo rats were at some sort of disadvantage hearing wise? They have bigger ears, maybe they pick up more on sounds that the normal ones can't but have bigger difficulty figuring out where the sound came from? It always seemed my non-dumbo rat can sense me coming a lot faster than my dumbos could so he'd have more time to book as I reached down for him....


Am I nuts?

 

[OnlyOno]

that's a good point, i've never noticed any difference in ear movements in my two. mozart (standard ear) flattens out and freezes when i come near, so she must be using her ears more, whereas picasso (dumbo) will flip around, so for her she must just be moving her whole body around. neat thought though.

 

[Sky14]

I'll have to get back to you on that after I watch Velvet a bit cause I never really noticed anything that I can think of at present.....

I'll get back to you asap.

 

[2manyrats]

Nope, you're not crazy - my best friend and I have had many discussions about the differences in movement in dumbo v. standard ears. We've come to the conclusion that because the dumbo ears are positioned so differently, and are more flat to the head, they have less muscles with which to move them. We don't think there's much of a difference in hearing - they all seem to react the same to the come command, loud noises, or humans making RARRRR sounds when they're doing something bad. However, there might be a nominal difference, but I think the difference between standard v. dumbo wouldn't be as pronounced as a black-eye v. pink-eye.