Plants Can Hear using Flowers as "Ears"

The latest experiments conducted at Tel Aviv University have uncovered an interesting fact about plants. Plants can hear and respond to animals in their natural environments. The way these beautiful creations interact and behave is fascinating. Isn’t it?

But if plants can hear, what are their ears? The team’s answer is surprising, yet tidy: It’s the flowers themselves. They used lasers to show that the primrose’s petals vibrate when hit by the sounds of a bee’s wingbeats. If they covered the blooms with glass jars, those vibrations never happened, and the nectar never sweetened. The flower, then, could act like the fleshy folds of our outer ears, channeling sound further into the plant. (Where? No one knows yet!) “The results are amazing,” says Karban. “They’re the most convincing data on this subject to date. They’re important in forcing the scientific community to confront its skepticism.”

Plants can hear, and they use their flowers to do so. Read more to learn about how flowers communicate with animals.