A species of Mexican fish amasses in reproductive orgies so loud they can deafen other sea animals, awed scientists have said, calling for preservation of the “spectacle” threatened by overfishing.
An individual spawning Gulf corvina, say the researchers, utters a mating call resembling “a really loud machine gun” with multiple rapid sound pulses. And when hundreds of thousands of fish get together to spawn once a year “the collective chorus sounds like a crowd cheering at a stadium or perhaps a really loud beehive”, said study co-author Timothy Rowell from the University of San Diego.
“The sound levels generated by chorusing is loud enough to cause at least temporary if not permanent hearing loss in marine mammals that were observed preying on the fish.
“These spawning events are among the loudest wildlife events found on planet Earth,” Rowell said, and “the loudest sound ever recorded for a fish species.”
