Research overview: low-frequency hearing in cats

While cats are celebrated for ultrasonic sensitivity, they also retain good hearing at lower frequencies, giving them an unusually broad overall range. This overview surveys the lower end of the feline audiogram, where cats remain sensitive to sounds well within the human range and below. Retaining low-frequency hearing helps cats perceive a wide variety of environmental and conspecific sounds, from purrs and growls to ambient noise. The survey discusses how the breadth of the feline hearing range, spanning low frequencies to far into the ultrasonic, exceeds that of many other mammals. It relates this width to the demands of both communication and predation. Emphasizing low-frequency hearing corrects the impression that cats only listen for high pitches; in fact their auditory range is broad at both ends, making them versatile listeners across an exceptionally wide span of sound.