According to a recent study, little fish may produce sounds louder than elephants.

 According to a recent study, little fish may produce sounds louder than elephants.

By CNN's Jack Guy

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

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A recent study found that a tiny kind of fish, little bigger than half an inch in length, can make noises louder than those of an elephant.

According to a news release released on Tuesday by an international team of scientists, Danionella cerebrum, a tiny translucent fish that inhabits shallow waters off the coast of Myanmar, is capable of producing sounds up to 140 dB.

According to the news release, research author Ralf Britz, an ichthyologist at the Senckenberg Natural History Museum in Dresden, Germany, remarked, "This is quite unusual for an animal of such diminutive size and comparable to the noise a human perceives of an aeroplane during take-off at a distance of 100 metres."

Elephants can produce sounds up to 125 decibels with their trunks, demonstrating the general tendency of large animals to be able to produce louder noises than tiny ones.

Nonetheless, the release notes that some little species are capable of producing extraordinarily loud noises for their size. One such animal is the snapping prawn, which can produce popping sounds up to 250 dB with its claws.

Danionella cerebrum seems to be uncommon among fish, while certain species do emit exceptionally loud noises during mating calls—the male plainfin midshipman fish, for example, can reach up to 130 dB.

According to a news release, males of the species "possess a unique sound-generating apparatus that includes drumming cartilage, a specialised rib, and a fatigue-resistant muscle," as demonstrated by researchers using high-speed video recordings, micro-CT scans, and genetic data analysis.

The fish create noise by pounding their swim bladder, a gas-filled organ that keeps them submerged in water, against the cartilage, which causes a fast pulse.

Lower frequency pulses were generated by repeatedly unilaterally squeezing the same side of the body, but higher frequency pulses were generated by alternating between compressing the swim bladder on the left and right sides.

According to the research, "no other fish has been reported to use repeated unilateral muscle contractions for sound production."

Researchers claim that fish use the pulses to communicate with one another in murky waters. The study shows that a wider range of noises may be created when bilateral and unilateral contractions are used.

"We believe that the males' competition in this visually constricting setting played a role in the evolution of the unique acoustic communication mechanism," Britz added.

The study's publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal occurred on Monday.

Editor's Note: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series devoted to covering both the problems and solutions related to environmental issues that confront our world. CNN and Rolex have teamed on the Perpetual Planet initiative, which aims to raise awareness of important environmental concerns, educate the public, and motivate action.

Source edition .cnn.com