World’s ‘loudest' white bellbird attracts females with songs reaching 125 decibels

The world’s loudest bird native to mountains of the northern Amazon known as the white bellbird are known to shriek some of the noisiest birdsongs ever. In a tweet recently shared online, it is learned that these birds can yell more than twice as loud as a normal human voice. The ear-splitting sound of the white bellbird has smashed the record for the loudest ever heard on the planet, usually made by males for mating calls. The sounds are said to be louder than the bison’s bellows and a howler monkey’s howls according to the University of Massachusetts and the National Institute of Amazonian Research in Manaus, Brazil. 

[A male white bellbird screaming its mating call. Image by Anselmo d’Affonseca. Credit: Science Direct Journal]

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Researchers Jeffrey Podos and Mario Cohn-Haft recorded sounds of screaming pihas, previously known as the loudest birds, and the male white bellbird’s voice and conducted an observation, and talked about it on a live podcast. The 210-gram male white bellbirds were found singing 9 decibels louder, over 125 decibels, than the piha’s song, which was till now known as the noisiest bird. The researchers, interestingly, found that the male white bellbird waited for the female to join on the branch, it, however, continued singing until the final note to woo the partner. The song is also compared with the loud noise produced by a pneumatic drill. 

“When the male white bellbird sings, it’s not just loud: it’s ear-splittingly loud. In fact, the call of this Amazonian bird is the loudest recorded call among all bird species in the world,” scientists wrote in a journal Science Direct.

Risked hearing damage for females

Further, it was found that the male birds screamed so loudly that it risked hearing damage for the female. Yet interestingly the researchers noted that the females, regardless of the shriek, perched closer to males on the branch.

Jeffrey Podos of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst said in a statement, "We would love to know why females willingly stay so close to males as they sing so loudly," he says. "Maybe they are trying to assess males up close, though at the risk of some damage to their hearing systems.” 

He added, “We don’t know how small animals manage to get so loud,” Podos said. “We are truly at the early stages of understanding this biodiversity.”

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