The Loudest Animals
Which are the loudest animals in the world? animalfunfacts.net tells you all about them!
A jet plane reaches about 130 dB (decibels). It can’t get any louder than this? Of course it can! Animals can get muuuch louder! Here is a list of the loudest animals in the world!
A lawnmower rattling past you reaches 70 dB. An angry car driver with its motor horn 90 dB. This is quite impressive. But if you are standing right next to a jet plane on the runway, your ears have to put up with 130 dB. Just the idea of this could make your ears ring. The blue whale and the pistol shrimp can be even louder.
The Loudest Animals in the World
| Pistol shrimp | 250 dB |
| Sperm whale | 230 dB |
| Blue whale | 188 dB |
| Fish (D. cerebrum) | 140 dB |
| Lion | 114 dB |
| African cicada | 106.7 dB |
| Wolf | 90-115 dB |
| Howler monkey | 90-100 dB |
| Greater bulldog bat | 137 dB |
| Kakapo | 132 dB |
| Moluccan cockatoo | 129 dB |
| Northern elephant seal | 125 dB |
| Elephant | 117 dB |
| Bush cricket A. arachnoides | 110 dB |
| German shepherd "Daz" ** | 108 dB |
| Oilbird | 100 dB |
| Water boatman M. scholtzi *** | 99-105 dB |
| Mole cricket G. vinae | 92 dB |
| Frog E. coqui | 90-100 dB |
| Cat "Merlin" **** | 67.8 dB |
* Guinness Book of Records 2009. 76 dogs were involved in the record.
** Guinness Book of Records 2009
*** Loudest animal in relation to a body size of just 0.07 inches (2 mm)!
**** Guinness Book of Records 2015. With PURRING!
Why Do Animals Make Noise?
In most cases it is very good for animals to lie low in order not to be discovered by animals of prey. But sometimes it is also incredibly helpful to be loud. For instance, wolves are howling to defend their territory, and whales try to find each other at distances of several 100 kilometers. The chirping of cicadas however is a mating call.
What Are Decibels?
Decibel is a measuring unit for sound volume. The unit is actually called Bel and was named after the inventor Alexander Graham Bell (who is also regarded as the inventor of the telephone). Yet, most of the time we use the term decibel (deci = a tenth).
What Humans Can Hear ...
A normal conversation between two people takes place at about 60 dB. Our ears begin to ache at a noise level of 120 dB. At 160 dB, the ear drum might even get damaged.
... and What They Don’t Hear
Humans can only perceive sounds within the range of 20 Hz and 20 kHz (= Kilohertz = 20,000 Hz). Hertz is the unit indicating the sound frequency. Giraffes use sounds below the level of 20 Hz when they “talk”. The call of a bat has a sound frequency of 14 - 100 kHz! By the way: It also works the other way round: Some animals cannot hear sounds that we can clearly perceive.
Funny records achieved by humans:
- Loudest shouting of a group: 127.2 dB (Finland, 2005)
- Loudest whistling: 125 dB (Marco Ferrera, California, 2004)
- Loudest clicking of a tongue: 114.2 dB (Richmond Hill, Canada, 2003)
- Loudest Alpine horn: 111.1 dB (Rainer Bothe, Germany, 2012)
- Loudest applause: 111 dB (Portugal, 2009)
- Loudest knuckle-cracking: 83.2 dB (Miguel Ángel Molano, Spain, 2012)