The tiny quiverings of the eardrum are passed on to the three smallest bones in the body, collectively known as ossicles and individually known as the malleus, incus, and stapes (or hammer, anvil, and stirrup, because of their very vague resemblances to those objects). The ossicles are perfect demonstrations of how evolution is so often a matter of make-do. They were jawbones in our ancient ancestors and only gradually migrated to new positions in our inner ear. For much of their history, those three bones had nothing to do with hearing. The ossicles
