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auriculares muscles

The image illustrates three small muscles—anterior, superior, and posterior—surrounding each external human ear, which rotate to direct sound towards the source in cats, dogs, horses, and other mammals.

Three small muscles — anterior, superior, and posterior — surrounding each external human ear. In cats, dogs, horses, and most other mammals their equivalents rotate the outer ear toward a sound source. In humans the muscles are still present, still innervated by the facial nerve, and still produce faint reflex twitches in response to unexpected sounds, but they no longer move the ear in any useful way.

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