Published 21:10 IST, October 22nd 2019
Amazonian white bellbird's mating call the noisiest in world: Study
White bellbird, with a deafening 125dB screech, has beaten the record of its rainforest neighbor, the screaming piha, for the title of the world's loudest bird.
White bellbird has beaten the record of its rainforest neighbor, the screaming piha, for the title of the world's loudest bird. According to a study published on Monday, the hair-raising screech of a male bellbird is at least nine decibels (dB) louder than that of a piha, volumes of which can be as high as 125 dB. The bird which lives in the mountains of the north-eastern Amazon emits deafening screech when looking for a mate.
Biologist Jeff Podos at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Mario Cohn-Haft of Brazil's Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia described the record-breaking finding in the paper published in the journal.
Defeaning calls of a bird weighing half-a-pound
The researchers said that its calls are so loud that they are intrigued about how white bellbird females listen at close range without damaging their hearing. These birds weigh around half a pound and they are as big as doves. The male species have a fleshy black wattle adorned with white specks that fall from its beaks while the females are green with dark streaks and wattle-less. Biologist Jeff Podos at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who along with Mario Cohn-Haft of Brazil's Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia recorded the loudest bird calls ever documented, said he was fortunate enough to witness females join males on their perches as they sang.
Loudest songs in pursuit of love
He said that he noticed that the male sing only their loudest songs. It is still unclear why the females voluntarily expose themselves to the loud noise at such proximity, which often reaches peak levels of 113 dB. It is above the human pain threshold and equivalent to a loud rock concert. The scientists are also not sure if the birds ever mated. The scientists also used high-quality sound recorders and high-speed video to study how the birds use their anatomy to produce such loud levels of noise. It is comparatively louder than the howler monkeys, or bison but not as loud as lions, elephants or whales, they observed. They also noticed that the pitch of the call fluctuates, the birds' respiratory systems have a finite ability to control airflow and generate sound might be the reason. They also said that they would place a natural anatomical limit on how loud the bird could evolve to become through sexual selection or selection for traits that are advantageous for reproduction.
Updated 22:00 IST, October 22nd 2019