Fish Are a Noisy Bunch

Most people aren’t aware of this, but the ocean is actually a noisy place, because its inhabitants are a noisy bunch:

For most fish, the sonic mechanism is a muscle that vibrates a swim bladder not unlike our vocal cord. The bladder is a gas-filled sac used for buoyancy, but it can also be used as a sort of drum. The Gulf toadfish contracts its sonic muscle against its swim bladder thousands of times a minute to generate a loud drone. At nearly three times the average wingbeat of a hummingbird, toadfish have the fastest known muscle of any vertebrate. Cusk eel rattle bones against their bladder, but clownfish have a sonic ligament they use to “chirp.”

Link | Listen to the fishies (don’t miss the wonderful humming of the toad fish!)