This layer helps it to breathe, but Sueur speculates that it could also act as an echo-chamber, reflecting the sound of the penis-fiddling again and again. Like other water boatmen, Micronecta traps a layer of air around its body using microscopic hairs. But maybe the amplifier isn’t a body part at all. But the “bow” here is just 50 micrometres long, and there are no obvious body parts to amplify the noise. It seems to do so by rubbing its ribbed penis against ridges on its belly, playing its genitals like a miniature fiddler. How does such a tiny insect make such a loud noise? It’s not clear. Sueur compared the ratio of call intensity to body size for 227 different animals, from whales to insects, and found that the water boatmen out-sang them all. Micronecta, on the other hand, produces its phenomenal song with a body that’s no bigger than one of these letters. The sperm whale, for example, grows up to 16 metres in length and weighs up to 14 tonnes. All of these animals are very big, and it stands to reason that large objects can produce louder sounds – think about the difference between a concert amp and a set of headphones. But pound for pound, there is no competition. Other animals, including elephants, hippos and dolphins can produce louder calls than Micronecta. The record goes to the sperm whale, which can create clicks of around 236 decibels underwater (equivalent to 170 decibels on land). There are animals that make far louder calls. But at its peak, it reaches 105 decibels – more like a car horn, a power tool or a passing subway train. On average, it reaches 79 decibels, about the level of a ringing phone or a cocktail party. He found that it the small swimmer is a record-breaker. Now, Jérôme Sueur from the Natural History Museum in Paris has measured Micronecta ’s song using underwater microphones. Even though the insect lives underwater, you can hear its call from the riverbank, several metres away. The males are the ones that sing, and they often do so in large choruses to attract the silent females. It’s among the smallest of the several hundred species of water boatmen that row across the bottom of ponds and streams with paddle-shaped legs. The din is all the more incredible because it is produced by an insect just two millimetres in length – the lesser water boatman, Micronecta scholtzi Micronecta means “small swimmer” and it is aptly named. His song sounds like a train of chirps, and from a metre away, it’s as loud as whirring power tools. If you walk by a European river on a summer’s day, you might get to hear the animal kingdom’s champion vocalist.
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