Gills out loud? They find a small fish making a lot of noise | Top Vip News

Scientists have discovered that a tiny, transparent fish makes a sound as loud as a jackhammer.

They were asked to investigate after hearing mysterious clicking sounds coming from the fish tanks in their laboratory.

They discovered that the fish Danionella cerebrum produces a powerful rhythm in an organ called the swim bladder.

In waters close to fish, it emits 140 decibels, as loud as a gunshot.

Researchers believe this 12mm long species is the loudest fish yet found for its size.

They believe that drumming can be a form of social communication.

In most kingdoms of nature, the larger the animal, the louder the noise.

Underwater is a different story: this tiny marine species is now one of the loudest yet discovered.

Scientists know that other creatures, such as the aptly named pistol shrimp, can create very loud noises while hunting other species, up to around 200 decibels.

Danionella is valued by science because its transparency allows its brain to be seen in action and this allows researchers to closely study its behavior.

But while working with these fish in their laboratory in Germany, scientists noticed something strange.

“People were walking past the fish tanks and could hear these sounds and wondered where they were coming from,” said Verity Cook, lead author of the study and a doctoral student at Charité University in Berlin.

“It turned out that they come from the fish themselves. And it’s extraordinary, because they are very small and noisy.”

Using a series of microphones and video cameras, the research team was soon able to determine how tall it was.

“At body length, around 140 decibels is the amplitude of the sound, that’s how loud we think other fish perceive the sound,” he told BBC News.

“Sound attenuates with distance, so at a distance of one meter, the amplitude is about 108 decibels.”

This is still roughly equivalent to the noise a bulldozer makes.

Much of this sound is reflected by the water, so when humans stand next to fish tanks, they hear these pulses as a continuous hum.

While fish such as the Plainfin midshipman and black drum, among others, are louder, they are all much larger than the danionella.

“In terms of communication signals, I couldn’t find another animal of this size that makes such loud sounds,” Cook added.

Researchers maintain that the drumming mechanism used by fish is a very sophisticated instrument.

All bony fish have a swim bladder, a gas-filled organ that helps them stay underwater.

Many species use their muscles to hit this bladder and make sounds, but Danionella goes much further.

When you contract your muscles, they pull on a rib, which creates tension with a piece of cartilage inside the muscle.

When the cartilage is released, it reaches the swim bladder.

Only the males of the species make this sound, and they only do it in company. Some are louder than others.

“We know that when you have about eight males together in a large tank, three of them will dominate the sound production and the others will remain silent. So we think there is some kind of hierarchy,” Ms Cook said.

Researchers believe that evolution in murky waters off Myanmar influenced the development of this ability to make a loud noise to help them communicate.

“Evolution has created a lot of interesting ways to solve a lot of interesting problems,” Ms. Cook said.

“And we shouldn’t assume we know how things work just because of how they work in other species.”

The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.