One of the world’s smallest fish, measuring about the width of an adult human fingernail, can make a sound as loud as a gunshot, scientists have said.

The male Danionella cerebrum, a fish of about 12mm found in the streams of Myanmar, produces sounds that exceed 140 decibels, according to the study published in the PNAS journal, equal to an ambulance siren or jackhammer.

The most common mechanism in fishes to produce sound involved vibrations of their swim bladder – a gas-filled organ used to control buoyancy – driven by rhythmic contractions of specialised “drumming” muscles, the paper said.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

140 dB under water is not the same as 140 dB in air. For underwater noise reference level is 1 uPa, in air noise level reference is 20 uPa. 140 dB under water would translate to 114 dB in air. Still impressive, a trained opera singer or a typical home hifi system can achieve somewhere around 105...110 dB, but far from a gunshot.

EDIT: in another article it was mentioned that the actual sound level is 108 dB at 1 m which would translate to 82 dB at 1 m in air. 1 m distance is the standard distance to measure the SPL level of an object, eg a loudspeaker. Far less impressive and very, very far from an actual gunshot that is ~140 dB at 1 m distance. Science reporting at its "best".