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A bird’s ear-splitting shriek smashes the record for loudest song

The male white bellbird’s voice is powerful enough to damage the hearing of the female he is trying to woo.
A male white bellbird screaming its mating call.

The male white bellbird boasts a black wattle on its beak and a voice that reaches 125 decibels — a higher volume than any other recorded bird. Credit: Anselmo d’Affonseca

When it comes to courtship, some rituals can be raucous. The white bellbird of the Amazonian mountains produces mating calls that can be louder than a bison’s bellows and a howler monkey’s howls.

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Nature 574, 600 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03194-z

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