Super-Hearing

Guaranteed to be a good listener.

"I can hear an angel fart!"

— Sal Macelli, Innocent Blood

The ability to hear anything audible that normal humans cannot. Pretty common to have for a character with Super-Senses. It's quite useful for eavesdropping, although hopefully in context.

May be a form of Charles Atlas Superpower. A blind fighter or swordsmaster is likely to have this. Also frequently the power used by the Living Lie Detector. A character with sound powers may also have this either innately or through training, frequently as a form of echolocation.

This power is widespread among werewolves and other werebeasts. Or at Animal-Themed Superbeings. Vampires often have a keen sense of hearing right after Night Vision.

Very prone to Sensory Overload, whether deliberate or unintentional, since loud noises are a Logical Weakness. Unless the user has the Required Secondary Powers of adjusting their hearing or filtering out ambient sound, they're very much Blessed with Suck.

Sub-Trope of Super-Senses and Sister Trope to The Nose Knows.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Akame ga Kill!:
  • Mimi, one of the members of Team Stylish, has this ability due to her large ears. This enables her to listen to the movements and speech of targets from afar, passing on vital information to her master.
  • When Leone is in her animal form, she also has the sharp senses of an animal. Her sense of hearing is then sharper.
• Armed Girl's Machiavellism: Tsukuyo Inaba is a blind swordswoman with immensely sharp hearing. She can correctly detect and pinpoint people's locations from an extremely far distance and even analyze body language from sound alone. She even managed to detect Nomura in the bathhouse with Satori despite Nomura being kept completely silent by Satori to prevent detection. Nevertheless, Tsukuyo did not realize Nomura was exhausted and wounded then, so he later could not go to the school's fountain as expected.
• Blood+: The main antagonist Diva has extremely sharp hearing, best displayed when she tracked Riku down at the Red Shield HQ by the sound of his heartbeat.
• Boruto: Yodo, a member of a genin team from Sunagakure, possesses sensitive hearing. So delicate, she can detect a person's heartbeat and breathing patterns to determine their emotional state. She can also anticipate the nature of how an opponent will attack by listening to their shifting posture.
• Clockwork Planet: Naoto's hearing abilities are miles above average and enable him to detect even the smallest of sounds and determine the number and/or location of anything (that causes/emits sound waves) within his hearing range. This ability is demonstrated when he precisely located all of the malfunctions in the Kyoto's Core Tower just by listening to its gears; he achieved this in a matter of seconds, whereas the Meister Guild had been trying to locate the malfunctions for days on end. It should also be noted that his hearing is so enhanced that it is necessary for him to wear his noise-cancelling headphones, just to reduce the noise enough for him to be comfortable with them. If he doesn't wear them for a certain period of time, the overwhelming amount and intensity of noises would cause him to develop a severe headache, much like a migraine.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Zenitsu Agatsuma has a heightened sense of hearing, allowing him to detect danger from even the faintest of sounds. He can also hear the inner thoughts of people if he uses his sense of hearing to its fullest ability.
• Dr. STONE: Ukyo, a member of Tsukasa's Army, has an incredible sense of hearing courtesy of working with sonar equipment for submarines before the Stone Age.
• Dragon Ball: Several characters display this:
  • Saiyans in Great Ape form have very keen ears. While in this form, Vegeta was able to detect the most minute sounds from great distances and stated that he could hear a pin drop from a mile away.
  • Piccolo, and Namekians in general, have extremely sharp hearing. Piccolo, in particular, is able to hear people talking from hundreds of feet away many times, such as when he overhears Raditz's plan to destroy humanity while hiding behind Kame House or when Future Trunks reveals his parentage while conversing with Goku in private. In the Dragon Ball Z: Lord Slug film, Gohan's whistle song to Piccolo also shows that Namekians are very sensitive to high-pitched sounds.
  • Thanks to his long ears, Beerus is able to overhear people even if they are far away from him and whispering. In Battle of Gods, it allows Beerus to overhear Yamcha and Oolong's plan on how Oolong will beat Beerus at Rock-Paper-Scissors, allowing Beerus to beat Oolong at the game, which Beerus points out after winning against Oolong.
  • The ears of Jaco the Galactic Patrolman are fitted with a hearing device he calls the Galactic Receiver, that allows him to hear from great distances. According to Jaco, the Galactic Receiver is powerful enough to pick up the sounds of an ant burping from more than 300 feet away.
  • Dyspo is also able to hear great enough to distinguish frequencies such as tiny muscle movements. This is what made him able to outclass Hit's Time-Skip.
• In Fairy Tail, the Dragon Slayers in general have superhuman hearing, along with sight and smell.
  • Natsu Dragneel, according to himself, possesses exceptionally good hearing, something which, during the Grand Magic Games, was proven true. During Lucy Heartfilia's fight with Flare Corona, the latter was threatening Asuka Connell with the help of her hair. Natsu was seemingly the only one who could hear their low conversation, and thus reacted accordingly by protecting the girl from the threat, allowing Lucy to continue fighting. He has also proven himself to be able to hear the voices of the Alvarez soldiers searching for a spy from way out at sea.
  • Cobra has been shown to possess extremely fine hearing, able to clearly hear the conversation between Jellal and Meredy across a great distance. He also possesses Sound Magic, an uncanny magical ability to hear a person's very soul, allowing him to tell if they are scared, what they are going to do next, and even allow him to hear their thoughts.
• The mercenary from Grimoire of Zero is a beastman, and therefore also has sharper senses than a human being. His sense of hearing is so good that he once escaped a pack of pursuers because he could hear from which direction they came, long before the persecutors noticed him.
• Holoearth Chronicles Side:E ~Yamato Phantasia~: Fubuki's fox ears can hear someone's cry for help from far away.
• In Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere, Suzu Mukai, a blind girl, has a hearing aid composed of a headphone that fully covers her ears and a set of tubular bells located in her clothing. This allows her to perceive auditory information from a circular area of a 30-kilometer radius with little distortion.
• In Hunter × Hunter, the Hunter Melody, after listening to the Sonata of Darkness, acquired extra-sensitive hearing and uses this ability in many useful ways. She is able to track targets or eavesdrop on conversations from hundreds of meters away. By listening to a person's heartbeat she can discern their emotional state, whether they are lying, and also if they are being manipulated. She can even differentiate among hundreds of people's footsteps, enabling her to determine the number of people in a crowd whilst picking out the distinctive sound of her target's strides. Her hearing also enables her to ascertain the skills of others from the sounds they make, such as knowing Killua is a former assassin from his silent steps.
• Inuyasha:
  • The titular character's hearing, along with his other senses, is remarkably acute due to his Youkai heritage. He is able to hear what people are whispering from great distances away, as was the case when, while perched on a tree, he overheard Akitoki Hojo hiding in a bush, quietly praising Kagome under his breath.
  • Koga also has a keen sense of hearing as wolf youkai. In fact, sharp senses are not uncommon for youkai and hanyou.
  • Mimisenri is a villainous Youkai resembling a grotesque Jizo statue with large ears: apparently he has the best sense of hearing of all the Youkai in Japan, as Naraku asks him for the whereabouts of the last fragment of the Shikon Jewel.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, the blind N'Doul possesses phenomenally sharp hearing. He is able to determine the position of a fly simply by listening to it fly or hear faint sounds such as grains of sand bouncing against an obstacle hundreds of meters away from him. Using his cane, N'Doul can feel vibrations coming through the sand even kilometers away from his position, memorize multiple people's whereabouts, or identify someone by analyzing the sound of their footsteps.
• Fujiwara from Kaguya-sama: Love Is War is a musical prodigy and as a result has a very keen ear. In one chapter, she was able to pick up on the fact that Shirogane was lip-synching during the weekly singing of the school anthem even though she wasn't standing anywhere near him and there were roughly 600 other students singing at the same time.
• In Last Exile, the chief acoustician of the Silvana, Wina Lightning, possesses this ability. She trained herself by continuously listening to the different acoustic signatures present in the Grand Stream, from the sound of a rainbird flock to the signature of a Disith battleship's remains. When the Silvana enters the Grand Stream, she is tasked with locating Exile by the sound of its engines.
• Morgiana from Magi: Labyrinth of Magic has a sharp sense of hearing. She could find Alibaba and Aladdin in a dungeon even though they were hiding in a cave.
• In My Hero Academia, many Quirks grant some form of this.
  • Kyoka Jiro's Quirk, Earphone Jack, allows her to channel vibrations through her Unusual Ears, which gives her Super-Hearing and a sort of echolocation if she plugs the jacks into a solid surface.
  • Anime-only character Sirius's Quirk, Good Ear, allows her to hear things beyond normal audible frequencies, which works well with her boss Selkie's ability to emit an ultrasonic frequency that can be used as sonar or Morse code.
• Naruto:
  • Zabuza Momochi surrounds his opponents in near-blinding mist, but isn't nearly so hindered by it because he has sensitive enough hearing to perform assassinations using sound alone.
  • Dosu Kinuta's hearing is so perceptive, he deduced that Rock Lee was a Taijutsu-based ninja by listening to the training weights strapped to his body, and he could figure out what others were writing by listening to the pencil scratches of people around him — in a room full of other people scratching away with pencils too!
• In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Asuna possesses Super-Hearing. She managed to clearly hear the conversation Eva and Setsuna were having in the ring even though she was on the sidelines of a noisy arena during the Mahora Festival's Tournament Arc.
• In One Piece, several characters display this ability.
  • During the Kuro arc, Nami was able to hear the arrival of the Black Cat Pirates on the island despite being on the opposite side of their landing point.
  • Smoker has a sense of hearing and memory good enough to remember which Banana Gator ate the key to the group's cell and identify him by his slightly different bellows.
  • Fleet Admiral Sakazuki has extremely acute hearing, being able to hear activity underwater before the Whitebeard War began
  • In the sixth One Piece film, Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island, one of the Teacup Pirates, Daisy, is shown to have very acute hearing (cited to be similar to Mantra). So much so that when nearly all the Straw Hats are absorbed into Lily's "body", she can hear them calling for Luffy to save them and informing him that they're not digested yet.
• The vampires and the jinrou in Shiki have a superhuman good hearing.
• In Strike the Blood, Motoki Yaze has the ability to control sound and uses it for eavesdropping and scouting. He also possesses a strange pill that increases his ability. By using his headphones he is able to enhance his hearing beyond that of a normal human. He is able to use this ability to spy on others or to keep tabs on them. The weakness of Soundscape is that it is too sensitive, as a powerful burst from Kojou Akatsuki when he was injured by Kirasaka Sayaka disrupted the Soundscape and harmed Motoki's hearing for several minutes.
• In Toriko, Zebra, one of the Four Heavenly Kings, has enhanced hearing. Toriko claims that Zebra can hear a coin drop from tens of kilometers away. He can also use his super-hearing for echolocation, by combining it with his incredibly powerful voice.
• In Vampire Hunter D, the titular character, a dhampyr, has senses which are well beyond even the superhuman senses of Vampire Nobles. D spent most of the time in the novel Dark Road blind and was able to accumulate his senses to fight off and kill some of the most powerful vampires without the use of his eyes.
• In YuYu Hakusho, Yomi, one of the Three Kings of the Demon Realm, possesses this ability. He originally had two ears but grew four more to compensate for his lack of vision after losing his sight. Yomi's sense of hearing is so great that he claims to be able to hear every word being spoken in his kingdom of Gandara. He is also able to accurately pick up on changes in an organism's heart rate, allowing him to guess facial expressions and current emotional composition, despite his lack of sight. Having modeled himself after Kurama, Yomi is a calm, calculating fighter, being able to measure the exact speeds of the opponent's attacks with his hearing, and activating his barrier at the moment of impact so as to not waste energy. In the manga, Yusuke says that someone told him that Yomi's ability to fight purely by sensing ki and relying on hearing takes a massive amount of concentration and stamina, which is one of the main reasons that his fight with Yusuke went on for so long despite his power advantage over Yusuke.

Asian Animation

• Noonbory and the Super 7: As part of the Super-Senses power theme, one of the Super 7, Jetybory, has super hearing, which she can turn on and off at will. This power will not work if she is ill, and has caused her physical damage on occasions when a very loud sound occurs near her.

Comic Books

• The Boys: Among Homelander's Superman-inspired powers is Super-Hearing, which uses more like Daredevil to be a Living Lie Detector.
• In The DCU, many characters have some variation of this power.
  • Animal Man can gain Super-Hearing by tapping into "the Red", an energy field that connects every animal to have lived either on Earth or anywhere else in the universe.
  • Aquaman has enhanced hearing which is several times more acute than human capacity due to his Atlantean Physiology, he once even heard a police siren from several miles away. Similarly, Garth has a particularly acute sense of hearing. However, because the rate sound travels on dry land is different than beneath the water, his hearing is directly linked to his vision. By extension, Atlanteans in general have naturally acute hearing.
  • Batman: Both Killer Croc and Man-Bat possess enhanced hearing. Man-Bat in particular can navigate through the air by way of echolocation, similar in function to a bat's radar.
  • In Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!, the titular Captain Carrot, upon eating a "cosmic carrot", is imbued with various superpowers, including Super-Hearing.
  • Timber Wolf of the Legion of Super-Heroes possesses Super-Hearing as a result of his werewolf-like mutation.
  • Robin: King Snake has hearing so good that his blindness is only an issue once when Tim modified his staff to whistle from the end if it was swung fast enough at the right angle. Otherwise he's one of the most skilled martial artists in the DCU capable of keeping up with any member of the Batfamily besides Cass in a fight.
  • Superman has incredible hearing at extreme variances of sound and pitch frequency, allowing him to pick up noises from across the globe. He has shown enough control to block out ambient sounds to focus on a specific source/frequency. Depending on the Writer, he has superhearing that allows him to hear clouds scraping together or a cell splitting, or hear across a vacuum.
  • In general, all Kryptonians under a yellow sun will develop this ability, including Supergirl, Power Girl, Superboy-Prime, Chris Kent/Nightwing, and General Zod. This also applies to Half-Kryptonian hybrids like Superboy and Jonathan Samuel Kent.
  • Supergirl: Supergirl's hearing is sensitive enough to hear any sound at any volume or pitch. With skill and concentration, she can block out ambient sounds to focus on a specific source or frequency.
  • The Flash: Reformed costumed criminal Hartley Rathaway/Pied Piper was born deaf. After he was treated and had his hearing medically restored, he developed a vast knowledge of sonics and further augmented his hearing.
  • Wonder Woman has exceptional hearing due to a blessing granted to her by Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, which has also enhanced all of her other senses.
  • Plastic Man has been known to enhance his hearing by expanding his ears to collect faint sounds.
• In the Marvel Universe, many characters have some variation of this power.
  • Black Panther has enhanced hearing due to divine empowerment from consuming the Heart-Shaped Herb. T'Challa is capable of detecting sounds that normal humans can't and sounds they ordinarily could but at much greater distances.
  • Captain America, as a result of the Super-Soldier Serum, has hearing which has been enhanced to the highest limits of human potential.
  • Daredevil has superhuman hearing due to having been exposed to a radioactive isotope that blinded him. Murdock's sense of hearing enables him to detect an acoustic pressure change of one decibel at a pressure level of seven decibels (whereas the lowest threshold for average human hearing is twenty decibels). He can hear a person's heartbeat at a distance of over twenty feet, or people whispering on the other side of a standard soundproofed wall. Through practice, Murdock is able to control his hearing acuity, mentally blocking out specific sounds like his own breathing and heartbeat, all ambient sounds to a normal human level of perception, or all sounds but a particular sound he is concentrating upon. Matt also utilizes his superhuman sense of hearing as an aid in processing, filtering, and interpreting the feedback of his radar/sonar sense to actually give him a three-dimensional picture of his surroundings. Additionally, Matt's combined use of his super hearing and radar sense can also give him tactical advantages, such as awareness of people hiding around the corners of rooms, walls, buildings, and furniture, and makes it virtually impossible to literally blindside Matt.
  • Monet St. Croix possesses a wide variety of mutant powers which represent a near-perfect human being. This includes Super-Hearing.
  • The Silver Surfer possesses enhanced senses due to the Power Cosmic, including superhuman hearing.
  • Spider-Woman (specifically Jessica Drew) possesses superhumanly acute hearing which enables her to detect sound at virtually any frequency, and she's been known to detect, sort out, and correctly identify sounds through thick steel doors, and across considerable distances.
  • Tigra of The Avengers has this due to her feline physiology. Her hearing is sufficiently acute as to detect a sound pressure level change from 4 decibels to 6 dB at a range of 40 feet.
  • The Sentry has this due to being somewhat of an Alternate Company Equivalent of Superman. He is able to hear almost any sound at any decibel, pitch, and frequency. The only Earth creature who can detect sounds at the frequencies he can is a blue whale (0.01-200,000 Hz). He has shown enough control to block out ambient sounds to focus on a specific source/frequency, such as hearing a butterfly's heartbeat in Africa.
  • Werewolf by Night has this ability due to his lycanthropy. He can hear the sound of a heartbeat in a cave at a distance of 30 feet.
  • X-Men: Banshee possesses a form of sonar through Acoustikinesis, allowing him to send out a precise, pure note and listen to the returning, altered wave-front of the note, thus enabling him to evaluate his surroundings in total darkness with varying degrees of resolution. Additionally, his hearing is unaffected by his hypersonic abilities or any other sound/sonic-based abilities. Another mutant, a student at the Xavier Institute named Raymond Keyes/Audio, possessed wide-frequency hearing. However, he lost this power after being depowered.
  • Pretty much any feral mutants are guaranteed to have this. This includes Wolverine, his female clone X-23, his son Daken and his archnemesis Sabretooth. Other examples include Wolfsbane of the New Mutants and Wild Child of X-Factor.
  • Noh-Varr/Marvel Boy of the Young Avengers is a Kree warrior, enhanced with cockroach DNA and nanobiology. Due to a layer of tympanic membrane covering his skin, he is capable of picking up sound more effectively.
• Elfquest: The related novel ''The Blood of Ten Chiefs" has an elven character named "Sharp Ears" for his great hearing.
• The Plutonian from Irredeemable has this as part of his Superman-inspired powers. He can hear whispers and heartbeats from across the world. However, constantly hearing whispers of fear and mutterings of ingratitude was one of the reasons that he eventually snapped from the pressure of heroism and became the world's greatest villain.
  • The series also showed a realistic and often-overlooked element of super-hearing: the speed of sound. When the Plutonian was eleven, he heard his mother planning to commit suicide while he was in school, about two miles away. The moment he heard the hammer of the .44 click, he zoomed home in an instant. However, it takes sound about ten seconds to travel two miles—his mother was already dead by the time he got there.
• Sami the Listener of The 99 is a mute with super hearing and sound powers, able to hear sounds from miles away. As the team are themed around concepts from Islam and its culture, specifically the ninety-nine aspects of God, he represents God's name Al Sami or "listener".
• Vampirella has senses far above that of regular humans. Her enhanced hearing is capable of detecting heartbeats in a building.
• In W.I.T.C.H., Hay Lin possesses a variation of this due to her air powers. She can hear things in the wind because of the sound waves that travel through the air.
• In Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Soundwave has hearing so acute that he can read minds. He can also hear his name being spoken by someone near Jupiter while he's on Earth.

Fan Works

• Dungeon Keeper Ami: Going into "Place a Dungeon Heart" mindset, gives Keepers this ability, but calibrated for water and stone moving, mainly. Because it's supposed to help locate underground caverns.
• In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Izuku possesses this as part of his Kryptonian powerset. But it's so sensitive that he consciously blocks it out to avoid Sensory Overload that would knock him unconscious. All Might also has this to a lesser extent, due to One For All enhancing his senses.
• In The Chronicles of Karai Getting Her Shit Together, Karai has a very acute sense of hearing due to her mutation, allowing her to overhear things all throughout the house.
• Zapana in Zero Context: Taking Out the Trash is stated to have this, citing that she heard her best friend call the main antagonist a sleazeball from seven miles out. When questioned as to whether or not this was beyond her range, she clarifies that it's lower if people are whispering; when speaking normally, yelling, or singing loudly, it increases exponentially.

Films — Animation

• In The Aristocats, the Bloodhound Napoleon has very good hearing and can discover various details about something just by listening to it. Somewhat surprising, since, being a bloodhound, you'd expect smell, to be his super-sense.
• Encanto has Dolores Madrigal, who was blessed with this gift.
• One of the many abilities of Stitch from Lilo & Stitch; he can hear people whispering hundreds of feet away, through walls.
• Zootopia has tenderfoot Officer Judy Hopps issue parking tickets as her first assignment. Her long rabbit ears don't seem to miss a meter when it makes its "time's up" tone. Indeed, in order to issue 200 tickets by noon, Judy must've tagged a car a minute, meaning no meter in the entire precinct went unheard.

Films — Live-Action

• In A Quiet Place, most of human civilization has been wiped out by an invasion of creatures who, although sightless, possess an acute sense of hearing and impenetrable armored skin. The movie focuses on the Abbott family, who have to live on their farm in near-total silence and communicate mostly in sign language in order to avoid attracting the attention of the monsters.
• Bird Box: Malorie is shown training her children to navigate by echolocation, so they're capable of getting around blindfolded. Tom likewise demonstrates this when fighting the unhinged people, managing to take down three of them just from hearing where their voices are coming from.
• E.T. "Sonar" Lovacelli in Down Periscope. "Someone just dropped 45 cents..." He also comments at various times about a colleague eating an Oreo, another in the restroom (by name), and a scuffle between lobsters on the ocean floor.
• Godzilla is generally depicted as having enhanced senses, including Super-Hearing. In the 2014 movie, he was able to track down the MUTOs' locations from the ocean by their mating calls.
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Hyde has animal-level smell and hearing. When listening to a record left by the Big Bad, Jekyll looks in a mirror and sees his Hyde alter-ego covering his ears. Apparently, the record was secretly playing a signal at ranges only heard by dogs and other animals with heightened hearing.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Heimdall possesses extraordinarily acute sight and hearing that allow him to observe everything that happens in the Nine Realms, should he choose to look or listen. In Thor: The Dark World, dark elf cloaking tech fools his sight but he can still hear their ships' engines. While never addressed in the movies, in the comics Heimdall selectively blocks unneeded information to avoid Sensory Overload.
  • In Captain America: Civil War, Peter Parker says that all of his senses are turned up to eleven (with those exact words), including hearing, but it's more of an Informed Ability.
• Tank Girl. The Rippers are kangaroos genetically engineered to have human qualities. Their sense of hearing is so powerful that they can hear something spoken in the open air when they're miles away and underground.
• Teen Wolf can hear dog whistles.
• Parodied in Robin Hood: Men in Tights when Blinken (who is blind) catches an arrow mid-flight from an assassin, saying he heard it coming a mile away. Robin, who is standing right next to Blinken, compliments him and Blinken replies "Pardon? Who's talking?"
• According to Star Trek: Nemesis, Captain Picard suffered from "Shalaft's Syndrome" when he was a child, which amplified his hearing to the point where every sound was agonizingly loud and painful.

Literature

• In Animorphs the Hork-Bajirs are known to have a good ear. The Andalites can hear much better than humans.
  • Over time, the heroes of the books are transformed into many animals by an Applied Phlebotinum, and many of them have much better hearing than humans. Even the birds of prey.
• The BFG can hear the footsteps of ants and the cry of pain made by a tree when it is cut down.
• Vampires and half-vampires in The Saga of Darren Shan have significantly sharper senses than humans. Among them is the sense of hearing.
• In Dracula, when Lucy is bitten by Dracula and starts falling ill, she notes that her senses have gotten surprisingly clearer, including her hearing where she can hear mice crawling in the interiors of the walls when no one can and the servants of the house in several rooms over from her bedroom. While finding it interesting, she likewise fears it, wondering if it's connected to her nightmares.
• In The Last Dragon Chronicles, the listening dragon Ganzfeld, more commonly known as "The Listener", possesses super hearing due to his large ears.
• Downplayed in The Dresden Files. Harry Dresden doesn't have enhanced hearing, however, following years of practice he's taught himself to both be incredibly aware of his surroundings and to be able to focus entirely on one particular sound, thus enabling him to hear things like hushed conversations through doors and pick up subtle noises others miss. Being a wizard, Harry will often use this talent to fool others into believing his ability to discover information through magic is greater than it actually is.
• The Listening Monks from Discworld possess this ability. In an effort to make out what the Creator said to make the universe, they train their hearing to fantastic sensitivity and live in Enlightenment country in the narrow end of a valley that forms a huge horn, where they listen to the universe.
• In The Ear, the Eye and the Arm, the Ear has massive ears that grant him super-sensitive hearing. On the downside, he often has to wear earmuffs to prevent sensory overload, and his ears are easily injured.
• Horton the Elephant from Horton Hears a Who! can hear a tiny person small enough to stand on a dust speck, and the unnamed rabbit from Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories can hear a fly coughing from ninety miles away.
• The taratzes from the German SF series Maddrax have a much better sense of hearing than humans. If they are tracking someone, they can find it by their sense of hearing alone.
• Vampires and werewolves in The Mortal Instruments have very keen senses. Her sense of hearing is also very good. When Simon is turned into a vampire, he realizes that he can hear long-distance conversations. The two werewolves Maia and Jordan find Simon and Clary in a large, abandoned building, listening to the sounds they cause.
  • Fairies also have a keen sense of hearing. You can hear sounds at great distances. Even half-fairies can hear well. Not as good as pure fairies, but much better than ordinary humans. So Mark Blackthorn notices in the sequel series The Dark Artifices, who is half a fairy and half a shadowhunter, that he hears a pursuing army, which his friends do not notice.
  • Later it turns out that the shadowhunters have special runes, which improve their hearing for a short time.
• Officially it is said that the demigods in Percy Jackson and the Olympians and The Heroes of Olympus have sharper senses than humans, also a keener hearing. However, it is never mentioned in the books.
• In Shadow Falls, this ability is common among vampires, werewolves, and chameleons (a hybrid species who maintain the powers acquired from their ancestors). Protagonist Kylie Galen, a chameleon, occasionally has hearing so sensitive that she can hear things outside of vampire range.
• In Shadow of the Conqueror, this is one of the powers granted by Lifebinding. Daylen primarily uses it for eavesdropping and to locate criminals, but also finds out that the downside to this power is getting Too Much Information.
• Silverwing: Most of the characters are bats and therefore have naturally superior hearing to humans' and utilize echolocation for hunting and navigation. The blind albino Zephyr however has developed his hearing even beyond the norm for bats, to the point where he can detect echoes of past or even future events, and even claims to be able to hear the stars. Shade, though younger and not quite at Zephyr's level, manages through practice to develop his hearing in this way as well, most notably in the sequel Sunwing when he asks for and receives counsel from Zephyr despite the two being on separate continents at the time.
• Tolkien's Legendarium:
  • In The Silmarillion, Varda, one of the Valar, possesses this ability, which is complementary to her husband Manwe's Super-Vision. It is said that Varda "hears more clearly than all other ears the sound of voices that cry from east to west".
  • Elves in general are said to have better senses, including hearing, than those of Mortals.
  • Smaug's hearing is so acute that he knows the moment that Bilbo enters his lair, even though the latter is invisible. He can't precisely find the invisible hobbit, though.
• In Warrior Cats, Dovewing had the ability to hear places and cats that weren't around her, but this power was revoked after her prophecy had been fulfilled.

Live-Action TV

• In Ace Lightning, Dirty Rat has enhanced senses, including Super-Hearing. He often uses his hearing to eavesdrop on the Lighting Knights by observing them from the roof of the Thunder Tower.
• In Alphas, Rachel Pirzad is a synesthete Alpha, meaning that she can enhance or detract her natural senses. She can enhance her hearing to hear heartbeats from meters away.
• A Running Gag on The Big Bang Theory is Sheldon's "Vulcan hearing". He is known to listen to whole conversations from behind a closed door. One episode of Young Sheldon has him being annoyed by a humming sound coming from the fridge that no one else can hear, so he dismantles it to try and stop it.
• Jaime Sommers, The Bionic Woman, has had her right ear replaced with a bionic one as part of her reconstructive surgery. This bionic piece lets her hear faint sounds from several hundred feet away. Just before she uses this ability, Jaime will brush her hair out of the way.
• In Black Hole High, protagonist Josie Trent develops super-sensitive hearing and echolocation after listening to her new CD too loud. However, her hearing returns back to normal at the end of the episode.
• The Boys (2019): Like in the comics, Homelander has Super-Hearing that makes him a Living Lie Detector, in conjunction with Super-Smell ("she stinks of adrenaline") and Super-Vision ("your blood pressure is a bit high").
• In the Buffyverse, vampires generally possess a highly advanced sense of hearing which allows them to pick up faint noises from far distances. Members of a vampire cult were able to overhear Fred whisper something to Darla who then informed her that "vampires have great hearing". Angel heard a bloodthirsty demon hiss from the top floor of the Hyperion. Darla used this when she spied on Buffy and Willow through a window of the library.
  • Evidently demons and half-demons also have much better hearing than humans. Lorne and Connor could already hear other people at a great distance.
  • In their animal form, werewolves, in addition to their other, sharp senses, have a very pronounced sense of hearing. It is implied that after a while, they also get this in their human form.
• Daredevil (2015): Foggy is more than a little freaked out to find out that his best friend Matt is capable of - among other things - hearing people's heartbeat from across the room. Especially since that makes him a Living Lie Detector.
• Doctor Who: The Krillitanes are an alien species who can take the abilities of other species, giving themselves new appearances and qualities. After gaining a bat-like form, they also develop very sensitive hearing. As an unfortunate side-effect from their sensitive ears, they are highly susceptible to high-pitched noises, such as a fire alarm.
• The Flash (2014): Siren-X, the Laurel Lance from Earth-X, is able to use her sonic powers to grant herself powerful hearing, allowing her to detect movements and noises from great distances while likewise being able to determine where they are coming from. Alternatively, she can use her sonic powers to create an echolocation effect, better enabling her to track down targets. This ultimately grants her an early-warning effect, able to better anticipate sneak attacks.
• Forever Knight. Vampire Detective Nick Knight finds this useful for eavesdropping on suspects and hearing the screams of a crime-in-progress, but in the pilot he's hiding in the metal trunk of his car when his partner Schanke decides to borrow it, turning on the radio to play loud music.
  Nick: (clutching his ears in agony) Schanke, I'm going to kill you!
• Grimm:
  • Due to having an Adaptive Ability, Nick Burkhardt develops super hearing after being temporarily blinded in season two. He retains it after he regains his sight. Whilst originally only able to access it when he couldn't see (i.e. either blinded or simply closing his eyes) over time it grows to the point where he can access it whenever he wants.
  • Many Wesen possess enhanced hearing, general rule of thumb is that if the animal they resemble does then so will they. Most can only utilise it in their woge forms, however.
• Groundling Marsh: Crystal has long bunny-like ears that allow her to hear things over long distances.
• In Heroes, the evolved human Dale Smither possessed enhanced hearing, which she was unable to turn off. A cockroach on her neighbor's floor sounded like a marching band to her acute hearing. The only thing that she found to block out all other sounds was rap music, which she frequently listened to as she worked. She was later murdered by Sylar in order to gain her ability, although he lost it after being infected with the Shanti Virus. Rene, more commonly known as "The Haitian", also possibly has this ability, as he gave a wind chime to Claire saying that if she ever needed him, all she needed to do is hang them outside her window and he would know.
• In Lab Rats, Chase and Marcus Davenport possess Super-Hearing as part of their bionic abilities. Chase in particular can record what he hears and plug it into a flash-drive slot to replay it. Although they can't turn it off, they can "activate" it by turning it more directional, thus allowing them to eavesdrop on people from a reasonable distance. Their sister, Bree, temporarily acquired Chase's Bionic Hearing after switching out her bionic chip with his. However, she was unable to control it and fell on the floor screaming because of it.
• In M*A*S*H, Walter "Radar" O'Reilly has superhuman hearing, being able to hear incoming helicopters before anyone else.
• The Masters of Horror episode "Sounds Like" features Larry Pearce, a supervisor in a tech support company who begins to descend into madness as his fine sense of hearing only gets better, becoming increasingly unbearable. This eventually results in him slaughtering a nest of baby mice and murdering his sleeping wife to silence the sounds her body creates. Ultimately, Larry frees himself from the burden of his enhanced hearing by carving his ears off, leaving him completely deaf.
• In Mighty Med, Skylar Storm, and Calderans in general, has Super-Hearing due to her Calderan Physiology. This allows her to perceive even the slightest disturbances in her surroundings, which allows her to intercept a pipe thrown by Tecton even though she is not looking. She also was able to hear the Shapeshifters' movement and Bree's breathing despite her being invisible. Unlike Chase, Skylar doesn't have the problem of ultra-sensitive hearing. The female superhero Spark also has Super-Hearing, allowing her to hear conversations from far away.
• In The Outer Limits (1963) episode "Soldier", Qarlo Crobegnny (a Super-Soldier from a Bad Future who is accidentally time-warped to 1964) has hearing that is "on a much more sensitive threshold than ours", which is why his helmet has "built-in sound baffles to deaden noises". This becomes a Logical Weakness when some 1964 cops remove his helmet, suddenly exposing him to ordinary street sounds that he's not equipped to handle, which weakens him enough for the cops to capture him and take him to a holding facility.
• The Future Predator from Primeval hunts in this way. He has a keen ear and can use echo sounder.
• Detective Jim Ellison has this in The Sentinel as part of a whole Super-Senses package (described as a genetic advantage for a member of a tribe, who uses it to protect his village (in Jim's case, his "village" is the city of Cascade, WA). It only fails him a few times, such as when a sniper is able to get off a shot, and Jim doesn't hear the rifle cock or fire. When they find the sniper's nest, they see that it has been soundproofed. In another episode, during a mandatory physical, his ears are flushed due to wax buildup. He's then aware of the slightest sound in the office (like someone tapping a pencil on the desk, which sounds like a jackhammer to him) until his friend Blair gives him a pair of earbuds that are white noise generators. He eventually learns to dial down the hearing to manageable levels. A two-part episode also has a thief with the same ability. She uses the senses to steal an item, but the loud alarm nearly renders her catatonic.
• In Smallville, Clark develops Super-Hearing after being temporarily blinded, he retains it after his sight returns. Clark can hear indirect whispers, pitches, frequencies, and the patterns in a person's heartbeat, and even that of an unborn baby, from almost anywhere on Earth.
• In Star Trek, Vulcan hearing is much more sensitive than human. In the original series episode "The Way to Eden", the antagonists use sound to knock out the crew of the Enterprise, and Spock is shown covering his ears in pain several seconds before anyone else even notices the noise.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine also established that Ferengi, with their enormous ears, have a very acute sense of hearing. Quark in particular has been known to hear the imperceptible humming of a hidden bomb, and Nog used it to crack safes. Similarly, the Vorta possess a sense of hearing greater than that of most other humanoid races as part of the Founders' alterations to their genome, although they have comparatively weak eyesight.
• Vampires and werewolves in Supernatural have a very strong sense of hearing. But it is implied that this also applies to other monsters.
• In Teen Wolf, werewolves in general have hearing which is described to be one hundred times better than that of humans. However, this also makes them vulnerable to loud noises.

Myths & Religion

• In Celtic Mythology, a race of dwarves known as the Coraniaid possess this ability. In Lludd and Llefelys, the Coraniaid cannot be injured because their hearing is so sharp that they can hear any sound that the wind carries, and can thus avoid danger. With the help of a long horn that muffles their conversation, Lludd asks his brother Llefelys, king of Gaul, for advice on the problem. Llefelys tells him that a certain insect crushed up and mixed with water is deadly to the Coraniaid but harmless to the Britons. Lludd crushes up the insects and calls a meeting of all his people and all the Coraniaid, then throws the concoction over the whole crowd, thereby killing the Coraniaid without harming his people.
• In Norse Mythology, the god Heimdallr possesses this ability as well as other Super-Senses. Heimdallr's hearing is quite keen; he can hear grass as it grows on the earth, wool as it grows on sheep, and anything louder.
• King Enma in Japan is said to have an extremely keen hearing to better help him find out what a person did so that he may judge them better. For this reason, a person with a very good sense of hearing is said to have the "Jigokumimi" (Hell's Ears).

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Numerous creatures have hearing so keen it gives them Blindsight, allowing them to function normally even though they can't see. Dragons, possibly in reference to Smaug, have an ability called blindsense, which uses their keen hearing combined with noticing environmental clues to accurately track invisible creatures' locations.
  • Under 3rd Edition rules, anyone who hits about 10th level and has been putting skill points into the Listen skill every level will have hearing that far beats the limits of normal humans.
  • 5th Edition rogues eventually train their hearing so well that they can function without any penalty in total darkness.
• Elves and Drow in Forgotten Realms have a better sense of hearing than humans. This also applies to half-elves and half-drow.
• In GURPS, the super sensory Advantage for hearing grants the ability to differentiate between similar subjects by the sounds they make; for humans, people can be told apart by their voice, for machines, they can be told them apart by their "sound signature".

Toys

• BIONICLE:
  • Hydraxon has super-hearing as the one thing he could call a power. It's considered not to impede his Badass Normal credentials, since it's shown to be as much of a curse as it would be a blessing.
  • The De-Matoran have hearing so sensitive, that even whispers from across the room will earn their annoyance.
• In Monster High, Clawdeen Wolf and Batsy Claro possess Super-Hearing due to being a werewolf and vampire respectively. Batsy in particular can listen to sounds from a very long distance, and instantly recognize what they are, due to sensorial waves she receives through her ears, specialized to do so. This comes in handy when protecting her jungle.
• SuperThings: Mikey and Whisper both have this power due to being microphones.

Video Games

• Final Fantasy XIV: Renda-Rae, one of the Warriors of Darkness from the First, was a famed hunter known for her incredible hearing that could detect prey from miles away. This backfired when a mark's roar caused her to suffer Sensory Overload and resulted in the partners she hunted the beast with being killed. In her rematch, she armed herself with arrows that would prevent the monster's roar.
• Fire Emblem: Awakening: As a taguel, Panne can hear much better than a human and can even detect heartbeats. However, she often complains that loud noises are harmful and explains to Gaius that, while she can hear people speaking from far away, it's difficult for her to make out more than a few sentences since she can pick up ambient noise.
• Legacy of Kain: Turel, one of Kain's vampire lieutenants, gained more bat-like features over the centuries, which resulted in gradual loss of sight in exchange for telekinetic and sound-related abilities, attaining "incredible powers of hearing at the price of faltering vision". However, his weakness to sound enabled Raziel to prevail in combat, making use of large gongs in the pit to defeat his brother. Turel's Vampire clan, the Turelim, similarly possessed sensitive hearing due to their enlarged ears.
• In Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, one of the boss fights is against the Folding Screen Monkeys, who embody the principles of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, do no evil". The "Hear no Evil" Monkey in the Green Robes has really good hearing, but poor vision, and will run away from Sekiro when it hears him approaching.
• In Tales of Symphonia, Collette gains heightened hearing as part of her transformation into an angel, at one point saying her hearing has gotten so good it actually hurts sometimes. She puts it to use later to help the party avoid a trap.
• In Touhou Project, Prince Shotoku, here known as Toyosatomimi-no-Miko and is a girl, has the ability to listen to ten people speaking at the same time, a reference to a famous legend about the historical Prince Shotoku. Due to her sensitive ears, Miko wears earmuffs.
• In Utawarerumono, Yuzuha, Oboro's bedridden little sister, possesses a keen sense of hearing due to her blindness, enabling her to recognize a person by the manner of their footsteps. Additionally, she is actually capable of hearing the emotions of people.
• In Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Mio is a Cat Girl with the pointy feline ears that it entails. Throughout the story, she frequently hears approaching enemies and other threats well before the rest of the Ouroboros party does.

Webcomics

• In One-Punch Man, Saitama's senses, including hearing, are far beyond the human norm. He does possess impressively sharp hearing, being able to pick up on various chatter from bystanders a good distance away even while fighting monsters and the like.
• Tower of God:
  • The Ranker Lero-Ro has amazingly good ears, being able to listen to Khun's silent comment from more than 100 meters away. It's unknown whether it's a result of Shinsu or simply a trait of his.
  • In "The Hidden Floor", the young version of Jahad can hear there isn't anyone in a building he sees in the distance across a chasm.
• Parodied inThe Non-Adventures of Wonderella when Wonderella suddenly (also parodying New Powers as the Plot Demands) gains the ability to hear someone using a specific incorrect term about Ghostbusters at a distance.
• Fionna from Kevin & Kell hears well beyond that of other characters thanks to her fennec heritage. She can hear fur growing or know which stomach of a ruminant is digesting their food. This became useful when she was switched to the Gardening team as she patrols Beige's crops for pests.

Web Animation

• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls Digital Series: Fluttershy's magical geode confers her incredible hearing as far as animals are concerned. As seen in the Webisode "Aww... Baby Turtles", she can hear newborn turtles crying from over a large, crowded beach.

Western Animation

• In 101 Dalmatians: The Series, the puppy Cadpig has an adept sense of hearing, which is stronger than that of her brothers and sisters.
• In American Dragon: Jake Long, the titular character gains enhanced senses, including super hearing, when he transforms into his dragon form.
• Toph Bei-fong from Avatar: The Last Airbender is blind, but can pick up even the slightest vibrations in the solid ground through her feet, even sounds originating in the air, effectively giving her superhuman hearing. Sokka in particular tends to forget that whispering doesn't help when Toph is anywhere within a mile radius.
• In Ben 10, several of Ben's aliens possess this ability. Wildmutt, Blitzwolfer, and Spidermonkey all have enhanced hearing, with Wildmutt in particular being vulnerable to high-pitched sounds because of it.
• All of the members of the Bionic Six have super hearing as a stock power, but Jack Bennett's (Bionic-1) is much more enhanced than the others.
• In Bravestarr, one of the titular hero's animal-based superpowers is "Ears of the Wolf".
• Freakazoid! has demonstrated several times that he can hear things that should be physically impossible for him to notice, let alone hear.
• Lexi Bunny of the Loonatics Unleashed has super hearing: it's specified in the first season's character intro. Although she doesn't use it much, she detected a major shift in the bedrock beneath Acmetropolis about ten seconds before the tremors started.
• In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2002) the Speleans are a subterranean race that, like the bats they resemble, have far better ears than humans do.
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Discord, the Spirit of Disharmony, seemingly has this ability, as he is able to hear Applejack from far away. This is likely because of his Omnipotence.
• Tracker of the PAW Patrol has super hearing which enables him to hear the tiniest of sounds. His catchphrase is "I'm all ears!".
• PJ Masks: Connor/Catboy has this as one of his superpowers. In his case, the ability is called "Super Cat Ears" or just "Cat Ears".
• The Powerpuff Girls: Since the three heroines are expies of Superman when it comes to their powers, naturally they have super hearing as well.
• In the Ready Jet Go! episode "Just the Right Distance From the Sun", Celery reveals that Bortronians have super hearing. While this isn't mentioned again in any other episodes, it does explain why she conveniently drives the minivan up whenever the kids mention going to space.
• Superman: The Animated Series:
  • In "The Last Son of Krypton", super-hearing is one of the first of Clark's powers to manifest.
  • In "Knight Time", Supes demonstrates his super-hearing to Robin by perfectly mimicking the cadences of first Batman's voice, then Robin's own.
  • In "My Girl", a criminal intending to do away with Lana Lang because she knows too much tells her that the lead residue on the walls will prevent Superman from seeing them. Supes then bursts in and remarks that he could hear them just fine.
• Underdog has super hearing, as he can detect the off-key singing of Sweet Polly Purebred, even when the two are many miles apart.
• In Winx Club, Musa, as the Fairy of Music, has sensitive ears due to her music and sound-based powers. She is capable of picking up on a person or creature's location by sending out sound waves like a radar in a similar way to echolocation. This ability of hers is further amplified upon gaining Onyrix as her special Onyrix Power, Sound Harmony, allows her to hone in on a target's sounds so that she can effectively track them down. She can also keep a person's vocal imprint memorized in case she needs to track them down at a later time.

Real Life

• Truth in Television with certain conditions such as hyperacusis (unusually acute hearing). Unfortunately, hyperacusis is almost always a debilitating condition, causing near-constant pain.
• According to a famous legend about Prince Shotoku, a semi-legendary regent and politician of the Asuka period in Japan, he had very sensitive ears and it is said that he could understand ten people questioning him all at once and then was able to give each of them back perfect answers.
• Many animals have much better hearing than humans. There are too many to list here. However, one should know that humans, compared to most animals, do not have a very good sense of hearing.

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