#procnias

Three-wattled Bellbird (Procnias tricarunculatus), HE SCREMMM!!!, family Cotingidae, order Passeriformes, Costa Rica

Three-wattled Bellbird (Procnias tricarunculatus) Campanero Tricarunculado (Pájaro Campana, Rin-Ran, Calandria) R-END

Burgalin Sequeira Fernando

Amazon’s male white bellbird has the loudest recorded call

When the male white bellbird sings, it’s not just loud: it’s ear-splittingly loud. In fact, the call of this Amazonian bird is the loudest recorded call among all bird species in the world, according to a new study.

The screaming piha (Lipaugus vociferans), also an Amazonian species, previously held the record of being the world’s loudest bird. But researchers, who measured both birds’ volumes in the mountains of the Brazilian Amazon, found that the male white bellbird’s calls are on average louder than that of the piha.

The researchers recorded two kinds of white bellbird (Procnias albus) calls: one that was somewhat louder than the recorded piha calls, and another that was extremely loud. The latter reached 125 decibels, more than 9 decibels higher than the loudest recorded call of the piha, and almost as loud as a very noisy rock concert.

The researchers observed that the pigeon-sized male bellbirds used their loudest call not for long-distance communication, but for female bellbirds that had perched close to them. This, they think, suggests that the males could be producing their chainsaw-like calls to attract potential mates.

“While watching white bellbirds, we were lucky enough to see females join males on their display perches,” Jeffrey Podos of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, said in a statement. “In these cases, we saw that the males sing only their loudest songs. Not only that, they swivel dramatically during these songs, so as to blast the song’s final note directly at the females.”

The researchers also noticed that the louder the song, the shorter it lasted. “If sexual selection keeps pushing the song to be louder and louder, it’s going to become shorter and shorter,” Podos told the New York Times.

The female bellbird could be sitting near a loud male to assess it up close, the researchers say. But why she risks hearing damage by doing so is unclear. Moreover, how a half-pound bird produces such a loud call is also a mystery at the moment, the researchers add, although they have noticed that the birds have unusually thick and developed abdominal muscles and ribs.

BELLBIRDS - Jeepers!

Not only loud (see video top) and pneumatic sounding, but also who designed those wattles? What a mess! Certainly there were other adaptations available?

Song / Call The bellbirds are known for their loud calls; although only one, the White Bellbirds (Procnias alba), have calls that can actually be described as “bell-like.”

Only the male vocalize. In breeding season males give resonant, far-carrying boing sounds, often preceded by piercing whistles or twangs.

The calls of some Procnias males are thought to be among the loudest bird calls on Earth - audible to humans from over 0.5 mi (0.80 km) away.

Habitat and distribution

They are all restricted to tropical or subtropical humid forested regions, often in low mountains or foothills.

Diet

A large part of their diet consists of fruits and berries, as well as various plant matter and seeds. Their short bills with a wide gape are adaptations for gorging on quantities of fruit.

Breeding

The nest is built on open branches. One or two eggs are laid per clutch. The female cares for the young alone, regurgitating fruit and cleaning the nest of fecal sacks and regurgitated seeds. The chicks leave the nest at 33 days, and take three years to come into full color.

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Bearded Bellbird (Procnias averano), family Cotingidae, order Passeriformes, Trinidad

Three-wattled Bellbird (Procnias tricarunculatus), HE SCREMMM!!!, family Cotingidae, order Passeriformes, Costa Rica

photograph by Mario Wong

Bare-throated Bellbird (Procnias nudicollis), HE SCREMMMM!!!, family Cotingidae, order Passeriformes, Brazil

This is one of the loudest birds in the world (see video).

photograph by Jarbas Mattos