Ear Formation

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(Image Credit: Science Source)

Around 8 weeks gestation, the outer ear starts as a groove on the neck, just below the mouth. Over the next two weeks, the outer ear migrates to its final position and becomes shell shaped.¹ From there, the outer ear forms more folds, reaching a more mature shape by 20 weeks.² The ear’s shape helps a person localize sounds; and since every ear shape is slightly different, everyone’s brain has made slightly different connections so that people have trouble telling the direction of sounds that are recorded inside someone else’s ear.³ Oddly enough, the outer ear actually continues to grow for a person’s entire life.⁴

The ear at four months gestation. (Image Credit: Priests for Life)

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Sources

Miho Kagurasho et al., “Movement of the External Ear in Human Embryo,” Head & Face Medicine 8 (February 1, 2012): 2, https://doi.org/10.1186/1746-160X-8-2.
Y. Nishimura and T. Kumoi, “The Embryologic Development of the Human External Auditory Meatus. Preliminary Report,” Acta Oto-Laryngologica 112, no. 3 (1992): 496–503, https://doi.org/10.3109/00016489209137431.
Guillaume Andéol, Ewan A. Macpherson, and Andrew T. Sabin, “Sound Localization in Noise and Sensitivity to Spectral Shape,” Hearing Research 304 (October 1, 2013): 20–27, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2013.06.001.
Carsten Niemitz, Maike Nibbrig, and Vanessa Zacher, “Human Ears Grow throughout the Entire Lifetime According to Complicated and Sexually Dimorphic Patterns--Conclusions from a Cross-Sectional Analysis,” Anthropologischer Anzeiger; Bericht Uber Die Biologisch-Anthropologische Literatur 65, no. 4 (December 2007): 391–413.

All images and illustrations on The Voyage of Life were reviewed by credentialed scientists for accuracy.

Medical art animation was used to provide a schematic representation of fetal development, with some features, including timing, not to scale. The animation was chosen as an ethically uncompromised guide to fetal development. There are many real human images at each developmental age showing the most accurate fetal forms throughout development. A concerted effort was made to use images and material in which the human embryo or fetus did not undergo any known harm.

Page last updated on June 20, 2023

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Ear Formation