Humans actually have vestigial muscles that activate when listening closely to something, even though people lost the ability to really move their ears about 25 million years ago.
Source: Human ears can’t prick up, but the vestigial ear muscles sure try : NPR
fta:
“Humans can’t move their ears around in the same way that dogs, cats and horses do. But people do have certain muscles around the ear that never get used, except by those people who are able to deliberately wiggle their ears as a party trick.”
