This Unassuming Bird’s Deafening 125-Decibel Cry is Louder Than an Ambulence Siren

The jungle is full of sounds. Due to humid temperatures, life thrives in these thick ecosystems, and so do the sounds those creatures emit. A walk through any jungle environment will expose you to a cacophony of noises: buzzing, chirping, and humming. The frog’s ribbit, the monkey’s howl, the cicada’s chirp, and an untold number of insects’ buzzes and hums. None of these animals, however, comes close to the vocalization power of a tiny white bird.

Indeed, in the Amazon Rainforest, one creature’s call reigns supreme: the white bellbird. A recent video captured this bird’s incredible vocal power, reaching as high as 125 decibels. According to science, that decibel level is so loud that it can cause physical pain. Let’s learn more about this unique jungle bird, its colossal calls, and how it manages to accomplish such a feat.

The White Bellbird

The white bellbird (Procnias albus) is a type of bird in the Cotingidae family. It’s not huge, but it grows to a formidable size, reaching an average length of 11 inches. Male bellbirds are almost entirely white, save for a black bill that features a fleshy appendage called a wattle.

On these birds, this wattle looks like a downturned unicorn horn. Female bellbirds, on the other hand, are more colorful and lack wattles. They have olive-colored feathers with yellowish underbodies. Due to their coloring, female white bellbirds are often mistaken for their cousins, the bearded bellbird. These birds eat a diet of almost entirely fruit, some of which is quite big. This gives them beaks capable of opening very wide. Scientists believe this helps them produce their signature ear-splitting cries.

Bellbirds live entirely in South America. There, they are often found high up in subtropical and tropical forests with heavy moisture. White bellbird habitats range from Brazil to French Guiana, though some have been spotted as far away as Trinidad and Tobago. They are an uncommon bird, but not endangered. Perhaps that’s because their vocalizations are so loud they scare any threat away. Let’s learn more about their mighty calls.

Vicious Vocalizations

Some birds are known for their melodious songs. Others, however, like the White Bellbird produce a sound so strange and overwhelming that it almost defies classification. As this video shows, this bird produces a call that sounds like a siren or a nuclear alarm siren. What’s more, it reaches 125 decibels. That’s louder than a rock concert, and high enough to cause physical pain. It easily tops the call of the screaming piha, the previous record holder for the loudest bird at 116 Db.

Researchers Mario Cohn-Haft and Jeffrey Podos published a paper in a 2019 issue of Current Biology that confirmed white bellbirds as the record holder and explained the reasoning behind their deafening calls. As scientists who spend considerable time in the Amazon, the researchers always heard the call, so they set out to investigate it. They even managed to confirm its decibel levels, a hard measurement to take.

As near as the researchers can tell, the white bellbird’s ear-shattering cry is not a defense mechanism. If anything, it would lure predators more than turn them away. Instead, they believe male White Bellbirds sound their call to attract females. Podos and Cohn-Haft posit that females encourage the loudest calls since males don’t ring the alarm until females are close by. Plus, females respond favorably to the loudest vocalizations. While these theories have yet to be confirmed, their loudness has been. The white bellbird is the undisputed champion of pain-inducing decibel levels.