About one in five people can wiggle their ears—while the rest watch in non-wiggly envy. But what makes this skill possible for some and impossible for others? Ear movement is controlled by the ...

A “useless” muscle that allows some people to wiggle their ears actually activates when we strain to hear something. Our ape ancestors lost the ability to pivot their ears when they diverged from ...

We've all surely met someone who has the ability to move their ears, but why is such a thing so rare? One of the most interesting vestigial structures in our bodies are the auricular muscles. These ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The muscles that enable modern humans to wiggle their ears likely had a more important job in our ...