The bare-throated bellbird is a new contender for the title of the world’s loudest bird: a 2026 report says male calls can exceed 130 decibels. The claim is striking, but it is not yet a confirmed like-for-like record against the white bellbird, whose 2019 mating song was measured at 125 dB in one study. And “drown out a rock concert” is an analogy, not the result of a controlled bird-versus-concert test.
Which bird is the loudest?
The latest reported contender is the male bare-throated bellbird (Procnias nudicollis). Science News reported in October 2026 that its mating call can top 130 dB, citing work by behavioral ecologists João Menezes and Jeff Podos published in Evolution on September 29, 2026. The report describes the bird as a contender, although its headline and opening also call it a record holder. The exact measurement details needed to establish a direct comparison with earlier results are not available in that report.
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The earlier benchmark belongs to the white bellbird (Procnias albus). In a 2019 field study, Jeffrey Podos and Mario Cohn-Haft measured mating songs from white bellbirds and screaming pihas in montane rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon. The white bellbirds were more than 9 dB louder than the pihas, corresponding to roughly three times the sound pressure level. The study abstract and record are available through PubMed.
How the reported numbers differ
Decibels describe sound pressure on a logarithmic scale; they are not a simple measure of how loud a sound seems to a person. Perceived loudness also depends on factors such as frequency, and sound-level readings can differ with the measurement method and conditions. A 2021 review of animal vocalizations discusses these limits and the difficulty of comparing published measurements made using different standards and methods.
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| Bird and source | Reported level | What the figure describes |
|---|---|---|
| Bare-throated bellbird, Science News, 2026 | More than 130 dB | Reported call level; the article does not give enough detail to establish the exact metric, reference distance, sample size, or measurement context. |
| White bellbird, Podos and Cohn-Haft, Current Biology, 2019 | About 125 dB | The study’s commonly summarized result for mating songs recorded in the field; do not treat it as identical in measurement description to the other figures here. |
| White bellbird, García-Rutledge and Narins review, 2021 | 125 dB peak re 20 μPa at 1 m | A standardized review-table figure with a stated reference distance and peak measure. |
| White bellbird, Guinness World Records | 125.4 dB (A-weighted) | Guinness’s listing for the 2019 record. A-weighted sound level is a particular measurement weighting, so this is not interchangeable with every unqualified dB figure. |
The figures therefore do not establish that the bare-throated bellbird has definitively surpassed the white bellbird under identical conditions. A robust record comparison would need to align the species, metric, reference distance, recording context, and whether the value is a peak or another measure. The 2021 review explains why those distinctions matter: “How Loud Can You Go?”.
Why bellbirds sing so loudly
The loud songs are associated with courtship. In the 2019 white bellbird study, when a female was present on the display perch, a male sang only its louder song type and turned to face her. Podos and Cohn-Haft proposed that females may balance the benefit of sampling males at close range against a need to protect their hearing. That is an explanation the authors put forward, not evidence that the females were observed to suffer hearing damage.
There is no single established explanation for why bird species vary so widely in vocal volume. In the 2026 Science News report, Menezes said, “We weren’t able to find an overarching pattern that applies to birds in general.”
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That wording makes for a vivid headline, but it should not be read as a controlled comparison. Concert sound levels vary with venue, distance from speakers, and how and where measurements are taken. National Geographic’s 2019 coverage likened the white bellbird’s call to standing beside concert speakers; that comparison is an analogy, not evidence that every bellbird call is louder than a concert. National Geographic’s report includes the earlier comparison.
Rank #3
For now, the most accurate answer is that the bare-throated bellbird has been reported as a new contender above 130 dB, while the white bellbird remains the well-documented earlier benchmark. The available figures are not enough to settle a precise head-to-head ranking.
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