Why only 20% of people can wiggle their ears and doctors say it's a 'superpower'

Tod Perry
Fri, 28 Feb 2025 17:20:03 +0000
Ears, Anatomy, Wiggle ears, Can't wiggle ears, How to wiggle ears, Wiggle nose, Funny ears, Dr. monica kieu, Popular science

Do you know someone who can wiggle their ears, either up and down and back and forth, but whenever you look in the mirror and try to do so, you flare your nostrils like a bunny, but nothing moves? According to Popular Science, only about one in five people can wiggle their ears, and it’s most likely not because they practiced all day in the mirror. For most people, it’s genetic.

In a recent video, Dr. Monica Kieu calls being able to wiggle your ears a “rare superpower.” Kieu is a board-certified specialist in facial plastic and reconstructive surgery in Beverly Hills and Newport Beach, California. “Moving our ears is a vestigial trait, meaning that it's a relic from our previous ancestors,” she says in a YouTube reel. “Although these movements help us localize sound, it doesn't really have much function.”

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Why can some people wiggle their ears?

If you have a dog or a cat, you’ve noticed that when there is a loud noise in the house, their ears perk up and then, like radars, scan the home and beyond to find the location of where the sound came from and what it might be. As humans, we’ve lost the need for such sensitive hearing over millions of years, so the auricular muscles (those attached to your ears) have become weaker. They are now considered vestigial or something that either didn’t finish developing or, through evolution, has become useless.

The auricular muscles aren’t the only thing evolution has left us from the past. The wisdom teeth are left over from when humans had to chew a lot more raw food. The appendix was used to digest tough plants, and goosebumps are left over from when we had fur.

Those who can wiggle their ears have not just developed vestigial ear muscles; their brains are wired to allow them to do so. They still have neural pathways in their brains that enable them to move those muscles, while others may have lost them a few branches back on the family tree. According to Popular Science, significantly more men than women can move both ears at the same time.

How to wiggle your ears.

Do you dream of being able to wow people at parties and entertain small children by wiggling your ears? Daniel J. Strauss, a professor of neuroscience and neurotechnology at Saarland University Hospital in Germany, says it’s possible. "In a recent study, we provided visual feedback — some sort of display of muscular activation on a screen — which could help people 'train' specific ear muscles,” Strauss told Life Science.

Gillian Margonis, a popular TikTok user, claims she taught herself how to wiggle her ears while bored in high school. Here’s her step-by-step process for getting the wiggles going.

1. Notice when your ears move

If you feel a slight movement of your ear muscles when holding back a smile, those are the muscles you should focus on. "After you recognize when it happens, look out for it," Margonis says.

2. Focus on your newly-discovered muscles

"Try to use those same muscles and see if it makes your ear move," she said. "You're probably only going to be able to do one or two wiggles until you gain control of the muscle enough to wiggle your ears as much as you want."

@gillianmargonis
I know my ears are big!!! thank u for 550k :-) ily