2024-05-05 13:24:33
This Tuesday, February 27, a group of scientists from the Charité University of Berlin, Germany, reported a surprising discovery: the discovery of one of the smallest fish in the world capable of making a sound that is as harsh as a gunshot.
This is the fish known as Danielle’s braina small vertebrate measuring less than 12 millimeters in length and is capable of producing sounds up to more than 140 decibels (dB).
In the study, published in the scientific journal PNAS, the scientists explained that this fish, despite its size, manages to challenge what was known about the skeletal movement of vertebrates.
“We discovered that it has a unique sound production apparatus (including drumming cartilage, a specialized rib, and a fatigue-resistant muscle) that allows the fish to accelerate the drumming cartilage with extreme forces and generate fast, strong pulses,” experts specify.
The group of experts assure that this type of discovery “challenges the conventional notion that the speed of vertebrate skeletal movement is limited by muscular action.”
Furthermore, it includes a “extraordinary adaptation, expands our knowledge of animal movement and highlights the remarkable diversity of propulsion mechanisms among species, contributing to our broader understanding of evolutionary biology and biomechanics.”
Although the brain of Danielle’s brain It is one of the smallest in the world of vertebrates, its mechanism to generate sound pulses has been an enigma for the world of science.
This is because its muscular mechanisms that are linked to the swim bladder do not provide a very clear explanation as to why this phenomenon originates.
However, these fish, although only measuring between 10 to 12 millimeters in length, the amplitude of a single pulse “could reach pressure levels of more than 135 dB at a distance of 35 mm.”
The experts point out in the study that, compared to other vertebrates, Danionella cerebrum produce unusually loud calls in relation to “with his body size”so its sound is so loud that it requires “a high energy expenditure, which is why it uses short and discrete pulses.”
The explanation for them being able to make these sounds, outside of the high energy usage, is that “When a sonic muscle contracts, the fifth rib is pulled forward and creates tension as it pulls on the cartilage. The sudden release of the cartilage causes it to rapidly hit the swim bladder, producing a short, strong pulse.”
This generates a burst of pulses with contractions that generate a sound as loud as that of a gunshot.
The study notes that scientists found five species of Danionella cerebrum, but only one was studied, while the others have not been investigated in detail, however, “It will be very interesting to study how the sound production mechanism differs and how these differences can be related to evolutionary adaptation.”