Blue, blue, my ears are blue.: The blue morpho butterfly hears through ears on its wings.
Courtesy William Warby

The blue morpho does. Scientists have found that this large butterfly of Central and South America has ears on its wings. These primitive ears can distinguish between the high-frequency sound of a bid singing, and the low-frequency sound of a bird flapping its wings. A singing bird is a sitting bird, and thus no threat to the morpho, but a flying bird could be attacking, and detecting those sounds tells the butterfly when to beat a slow, erratic retreat.

(Wait a minute…Blue Morpho…wasn’t he a character in Yellow Submarine Reloaded?)

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