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Bug With "Singing Penis" Is World's Loudest
sciencehabit writes "The world's loudest animal relative to its size has been revealed to be a tiny bug with a big organ. The water boatman, Micronecta scholtzi, rattles its penis along grooves in its abdomen to produce a chattering song—that registers at 99.2 decibels—about the volume of a loud orchestra heard from the front row. Even though the water boatman does its 'singing' from the bottom of rivers to attract mates, humans walking along the riverbank can clearly hear it. The area along its abdomen that the bug uses to make the noise is only about the width of a human hair, and researchers aren't sure exactly how it produces so loud a song."
I wonder if it takes requests.
I should have been a girl, with the way I can dance... my moves are amazing!
What a dick.
What a knob.
What a todger.
What a ...
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
"Honey, let's make beautiful music together... I'm tired of making it on my own!"
Domains, shared and dedicated hosting, SSL certs, and more: ArrowBay.net
The area along its abdomen that the bug uses to make the noise is only about the width of a human hair, and researchers aren't sure exactly how it produces so loud a song
It's probably -because- it's only the width of a hair that the bug makes such loud noises. If mine were the size of a hair, I'd probably be pretty upset and yell pretty loudly too.
Micronecta scholtzi are freshwater insects measuring just 2mm that are common across Europe. ... ... ... ... ... ...
On average, the songs of M. scholtzi reached 78.9 decibels, comparable to a passing freight train.
"If you scale the sound level they produce against their body size, Micronecta scholtzi are the loudest animals on Earth," said Dr Windmill.
To produce the intense sound, the water boatmen "stridulate" by rubbing a ridge on their penis across the ridged surface of their abdomen.
"Males try to compete to have access to females and then try to produce a song as loud as possible potentially scrambling the song of competitors."
What makes M. scholtzi extraordinary is that the area they use to create sound only measures about 50 micrometres across, roughly the width of a human hair.
btw, here is the picture of the little bugger.
You can't handle the truth.
I found that the bug's Wikipedia page contains the following disturbing gem (bolding mine):
M. scholtzi is easily differentiated from other species in this genus by the twisted left paramere of the male genitalia, (see Traumatic insemination ) the short pronotum and a distinctive dark pattern on the head.
I thought getting your schwartz twisted was a bad thing, but apparently this little feller has capitalized on it to develop a whole range of antisocial hobbies. Who knew.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Has slashdot descended so far that news for nerds is now "animal makes noise with its dick"? Really now...
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
The area along its abdomen that the bug uses to make the noise is only about the width of a human hair, and researchers aren't sure exactly how it produces so loud a song.
A horny bug, it will make it work.
It has to.
Sig? Heil
{Son} Dad? What're those bugs singing for?
{Dad} They're rap fans.
{Son} Huh?
{Dad} 2 Live Crew fans actually.
{Son} 2 Live WHO? Dad? What're the damn bugs singin' about?
{Dad} Their song is the bug version of "We Want Some Pussy"
{Son} Oh.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Phallus jokes aside. It would be great to understand how this works. We've somewhat recently started looking more closely at the notion of acoustic levitation for solving all manner of problems. Particularly containerless manufacturing. It's been suggested based upon various ancient texts that this may well have been the means by which so many of these massive megaliths far exceeding modern engineering capabilities were transported and placed. The ability for something so small to produce such a relatively massive acoustic pressure definitely helps bolster the case.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
I though the description referred to an error in a sound driver in a Linux release named "Singing Penis."
While acoustic levitation is certainly an interesting phenomenon, I wouldn't get too confused about ancient monuments and ancient texts -- basic applied physics is all we need to understand how to move multi-ton blocks of stone with nothing but manpower.
By way of reference, have a look at Wally Wallington's website -- not joking, the guy shows some very convincing demonstrations of how a single human can move 20-ton chunks of concrete (concrete being easier to obtain than stone, but functionally similar).
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Decibel figures are meaningless without knowing the distance of the observer to the bug's penis. For all we know, the scientist jammed the bug's willy into his/her ear, in which case the sound could obviously be perceived much louder than an orchestra from the front row!
Given the proportion of prong to bug, that noise you're hearing is sheer pride.
... Dude, don't listen to my junk.
FLR
i wish my penis could sing
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I think they made a mistake with the name, it should be Meganecta Schlongi.
The pink conch has a penis half its body length and mates for hours. When it is having sex eels and lobsters may eat it's dick but no problem--it will grow a new one in a few months
It's a feature. :)
For a moment I thought I was in reddit. I'm looking for any connection in this article to a technical subject, any, well, I guess I'm losing my sense of humor.
That's nothing.
I once knew a Congressman whose penis was so loud that just one tweet from it echoed for weeks until it made his career explode...
Because if you rattled your penis that way, you'd scream just a loud as a Boat, man.
How about studying the bug to figure out how to use the effect to make super effective speakers and sound equipment? That makes a lot more sense than the endless jokes about penises, what, are you all sexually repressed teenagers or something?
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
It's whether or not you can hit all the notes in the right order... Sheesh.
I think it's a lot more likely that the penis isn't making the noise at all. Yes, it's doing what they say it's doing, but the noise actually comes from the bug's screaming, either in sheer ecstasy or excruciating pain.
'Bug With "Singing Penis" Is World's Loudest'
Assuming the article subject is grammatically correct, this must be the world's loudest bug. Given the propensity for phrase structure errors on this site, however, I am left wondering if this is the world's loudest bug, or the world's loudest singing penis.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Well, there's this one.
I can't think of anything more nerdy than science (which this is). It just happens to also be highly amusing. Not to mention the last line of TFS is intriguing, and could really matter: what if you could one day buy a speaker no bigger than your fingernail, but it could fill a room?
What, would you rather see the latest bullshit about pop-star-drama-du-jour? Or how about what the next color iThing will be?
Nathan's blog
To say that your penis makes enough noise to equal an orchestra from the front row, I can just imagine what the female vagina of that species is capable of...