Wiggling your ears might be more of a pub party piece than a survival skill, but humans still try to prick up their ears when listening hard, researchers have found.

Ear movement is crucial in many animals, not least in helping them focus their attention on particular noises and work out which direction they are coming from.

But while the human ear is far more static, traces of our ancestors’ ear-orienting system remain in what has been called a “neural fossil”.