The world’s noisiest bird

Ornithologists have identified the noisiest bird on the planet, with a call as loud as a pile driver. Native to the Amazon rain forest, the male white bellbird can reach volumes of 125 decibels—at least nine decibels louder than its noisiest rival. A typical human voice is only about 60 decibels. The bellbird’s call—a bizarre metallic-sounding squawk—forms part of a highly unusual mating ritual, researchers discovered. When a female lands nearby, the male sings the first note of his deafening song facing directly away from his potential mate—then sharply swivels his head around and yells the second note right in her face. The female knows it’s coming, because just before the turn she flutters back a few feet. Whether such raucous behavior actually helps male white bellbirds secure a mate is not clear. “We never saw copulation, we never saw what a really good male does,” study co-author Jeffrey Podos, from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, tells The New York Times. “The ones we saw might have just been losers.”

Reuters, Getty, Anselmo d Affonseca ■