Animals are a noisy bunch. They babble and they bleat, and they chirp and croak and coo. And it's no wonder why, since sound is one of the main mediums through which animals can communicate.
Studies suggest that there are around 10,000 species of birds and around 6,000 species of mammals that possess the ability to produce sounds, not to mention the sound-makers in the reptilian and amphibian taxa, among others. For these animals, sounds are the trick to survival. They allow their makers to find food, attract partners, avoid predators, and stake their claims on their territories. But which of the world's animals are the loudest?
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To answer that question, it is important to understand what determines the loudness of a sound.
When the sound-producing structures of an animal start to vibrate, whether that animal is a chirping cheetah, a ...
