The worlds noisiest penis

The lesser water boatman is the loudest creature in the world thanks to the insect’s noisy ‘singing penis’, scientists have discovered.

A team of biologists and engineers told the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Conference in Glasgow that they had found the 2mm long insect is capable of making a din measuring 99.2 decibels – the same level as a full orchestra playing at its loudest.

That makes the bug, or Micronecta scholtzi, the noisiest animal on the planet relative to its body size,.

The male water boatman generates the sound by rubbing its penis against its abdomen while underwater, as it attempts to attract mates.

Although 99 per cent of the noise is lost as it is transferred from the bottom of the river to the surface, the singing is still loud enough for humans walking on the banks to hear.

Dr James Windmill, of the University of Strathclyde’s Centre for Ultrasonic Engineering, said: ‘We were very surprised. We first thought that the sound was coming from larger aquatic species.

‘When we identified without any doubt the sound source, we spent a lot of time making absolutely sure that our recordings of the sounds were calibrated correctly.

‘If you scale the sound level they produce against their body size, they are without doubt the loudest animals on Earth.’

The noisiest creature in absolute terms is the blue whale, which has a song that can reach 188 decibels.

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