The Gulf corvina produces a chattering chorus that’s one of the loudest underwater animal sounds on the planet. Christopher Intagliata reports.

海湾石首鱼（Gulf corvina）所发出的嘈杂合唱（叫声）是这个星球上最响亮的水下动物声音之一。克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔报道。

撰文播音：克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔（Christopher Intagliata）

翻译：邱燕宁

审校：郭晓

They're among the most amazing events of the wild world:

Africa's thundering herds of wildebeest. <<BBC: "...and nothing will stop them now.">>

这是野生动物世界最令人惊奇的事件之一:

非洲的大批角马群。<<英国广播公司（BBC）:“……现在什么也阻止不了它们。>>

The incredible migrating monarch butterflies. <<National Geographic: "One of the great spectacles of nature.">>

令人难以置信的帝王蝶迁徙。<<国家地理:“大自然的一大奇观”>> 

The captivating chorus < > of the Gulf corvina. Wait, haven't heard of that last one?

海湾石首鱼迷人的合唱<<石首鱼的声音>>。等等，没听说过最后一个吗?

"It's a true wildlife spectacle. A fish this loud, this many fish calling."

“这是一个真正的野生动物奇观。鱼可以发出如此巨大的声音，这是很多鱼的叫声。”

Brad Erisman is a fisheries ecologist at the University of Texas, Austin. And to hear him tell it, the chatter of the corvina fish belongs right up there with those other great spectacles.

德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的渔业生态学家Brad Erisman如是说。据他说，海湾石首鱼的叫声可以和其它那些奇观匹敌。

Every spring, he says, the fish migrate hundreds of miles to the northernmost reaches of the Sea of Cortez, the body of water between Baja, California and mainland Mexico. And there, at the Colorado River Delta, "it has this massive synchronous spawning with outgoing tides for two to three days, every other week, for three months."

他说，每年春天，这些鱼都会迁徙到数百英里外的科尔特斯海的最北端，这片水域位于巴哈、加利福尼亚和墨西哥大陆之间。而在科罗拉多河三角洲，“它们在三个月的时间里，每隔一周都会有两到三天随着退潮进行大规模的产卵。”

And during that time, it also makes this noise < >, produced by flexing muscles around the swim bladder. "And it allows the swim bladder to reverberate. Much like any sort of drum, any sort of gas-filled chamber."

在这期间，这种鱼也通过收缩鱼鳔周围的肌肉制造这种噪音<<石首鱼的声音>>。“它利用鱼鳔来发出回响，像是任何一种鼓或者其他空心腔的发声原理。“

That simultaneous drumming of hundreds of thousands or even millions of fish is extremely loud. "It's louder than if you were a meter away from the stage at a rock concert." In fact, Erisman and his colleague Timothy Rowell have found that corvina chatter rivals the decibel levels produced by whales—loud enough, even, to damage the hearing of dolphins—making it among the loudest underwater animal sounds on the planet.

成千上万甚至上百万条鱼同时发出的声音非常响亮。“这比在摇滚音乐会离舞台一米远的地方听到的声音更大。”事实上，Erisman和他的同事Timothy Rowell已经发现，石首鱼的声音足以与鲸鱼的分贝水平相匹敌，甚至可以破坏海豚的听觉，使之成为地球上最响亮的水下动物声音之一。

The aquatic cacophony is written up in the journal Biology Letters. [Brad E. Erisman and Timothy J. Rowell, A sound worth saving: acoustic characteristics of a massive fish spawning aggregation]

关于这种水中刺耳声音的研究发表在《生物学快报》（Biology Letters）上。

But the sound is under attack—by our teeth. "Fried, baked, put it in tacos. Pretty much any way you can think of, you can make corvina." Which spells danger for the singing fish. "It's heavily exploited, it's overfished, and we're really concerned about the fishery collapsing."

但是这种声音正在受到我们牙齿的攻击和威胁。“油炸，烤，放进玉米卷。你几乎可以用任何一种你能想到的方式来烹饪石首鱼。”这对这种唱歌的鱼来说是危险的。“这种鱼类资源被大量开发，过度捕捞，我们真的很担心这会导致渔业崩溃。”

But by spreading the word about the corvina's signature sound, Erisman hopes to keep the species—and its song—from going silent.

但通过宣传石首鱼的标志性声音，Erisman希望保护这特殊的物种，和它的歌声——避免其走向沉默。