![]() ![]() The fish’s vocal repertoire includes grunts, short bursts of sound that may repeat every second or half-second. The male midshipman can sustain a hum for minutes at a time. The fish version of the ship’s whistle is less deafening but lasts longer. Ferries whistle - the whistle the captain or first officer on the bridge warns passengers about just before it blasts. The fish have bulbous, big-lipped heads, can grow as long as 38 cm (15 inches), and resemble giant tadpoles or legless toads with long snake-like tails.Ī male midshipman hoping to get lucky produces its calls by rapidly contracting its drumming muscles on its air-filled swim bladders.Ī beachful of humming males can sound like a swarm of motorboats, a foghorn, or even a B.C. The plainfin midshipman is a species of toadfish. Once finished, the bachelors dig in and hum to attract mates. ![]() They storm the beaches at low tide and wedge themselves under rocks, where they excavate their nests. Theories explaining the sound included sewage pumps, military experiments and submarines.īut researchers found the ruckus was caused by sex-starved male plainfin midshipman fish.Įach spring, Porichthys notatus males emerge from the depths of the eastern Pacific Ocean to breed in the intertidal zone of our beaches. They may be why you shut your windows at night.įor years, houseboat residents in Sausalito, California, complained about a droning hum from San Francisco Bay on summer nights. They may have interrupted your conversations. If you’re fortunate to live within the sound of the waves in, for example, Brentwood Bay, Ladysmith Inlet, White Rock’s Crescent Beach, or any other beach with the right combination of sand and rock, you may be familiar with this fish’s night-time vocalizations. If you’re walking near a beach that has loose rocks, you may be hearing the siren call of the plainfin midshipman fish. Forget street cleaners, distant traffic, or the snap-crackle-pop of salt-sprayed power lines. Forget the drone of freighters anchored in the straits. ![]()
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