A mystery noise that has kept the residents of Tampa, Florida, awake at night may well be the sound of fish enjoying their evenings making baby fish, according to a scientist investigating the strange phenomenon.
Residents of the Tampa Bay area have reported a strange drumming noise that becomes so loud it causes their homes to vibrate, and becomes especially noticeable once people lay their heads on their pillows.
The noise is not a new phenomenon, and it has been speculated over the years that the drumming noise may be coming from a party boat, raucous but as yet unknown club, top secret military shenanigans and even aliens, but nobody ever suspected it was fish having adult relations – except Mote Marine scientist, Dr James Locascio, who has been studying the behaviour for years.
The culprit is the black drum fish (Pogonias cromis), also known as the drummer, large schools of which congregate each year during October and March off the Florida coast. Black drum can reach up to 1m in length and weigh as much as 50kg, although most specimens are much smaller, weighing in at a maximum of around 20kg in adulthood.
The fish produce the low-frequency mating call by flexing their muscles against their swim bladders, with the sound reaching up to 140 decibels or more. Low-frequency noise travels great distances in water, and may be travelling through groundwater and service pipes to reach people’s homes.
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Locascio, a fisheries program manager at More Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, has previously identified the black drum as the source of similar noises in other locations. Locascio completed his dissertation on the subject in 2005, and has published a number of papers relating to the sound over the years., including a 2011 study in which he recorded black drum sounds during the spawning season.
‘Some nights are louder than others,’ said Locasio in a 2022 interview with Fox 35 Orlando. ‘How far they travel depends on how intense they are at the source and what the background levels are like in the environment they are travelling through and what the physical environment is like that they’re travelling through.’
Sara Healy, a resident of the area most affected by the noise, contacted Dr Locascio to ask for assistance in resolving the matter. He agreed to help if they could pay for the necessary equipment, for which Healy has launched a GoFundMe campaign. Healy hopes that the study will prove once and for all whether or not the noise is coming from the fish, or whether it really is a distant rock concert, extra-curricular military manoeuvres, or alien beatboxers trolling the Florida coast.
‘Just having an answer, or having a clearer answer or more information would just help everybody as a whole,’ said Healy. ‘It seemed a little bit silly for me to be pursuing this so doggedly, but on the other level, this is something that’s important to the community.’
‘Understanding this is satisfying and reduces the anxiety about what the source is,’ agreed Dr Locascio in an interview with Fox 13, ‘but it also offers the opportunity to learn something pretty neat about the natural world.’
The phenomenon might not be well known amongst the general population, but it has been recognised by South Florida’s fishing communities for many years.
‘They used to call it the Punta Gorda growl in the 1970s,’ said Dr Locascio. ‘So, down there, it’s been going on or known about for a long time.’
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