This fish has a love song and it sounds like a windshield wiper

Coral reefs are noisy environments. So if you’re struggling to be heard, you might need to try something new.

Damselfish are renowned marine chatterboxes, and several species can make sounds. Until recently, we only knew about two types of call: single pulse sounds or “pops” made when damselfish snap their teeth together, and “chirps” formed of multiple pulses joined up.

Now it appears damselfish have developed a new call to help them shout above the racket – you can hear it below:

Named after its likeness to a windscreen wiper on dry glass, the wiping sound of the Ambon damselfish, Pomacentrus amboinensis, was recorded by scientists at a reef in Taiwan.

As a high-pitched tonal call, the wiping sound is completely different to the pops and chirps damselfish usually make because it is not pulsed.

“It’s almost like it’s learned a new trick,” says Steve Simpson, a marine biologist at the University of Exeter, UK.

He has been studying P. amboinensis on the Great Barrier Reef for 15 years but has only just started hearing the wiping sound. Simpson suggests that if the fish can learn how to make this new call, then it might spread socially quite quickly.

This new call, used during courtship and chase behaviours, is thought to help damselfish identify fish of its own species within the reef environment.

“It’s a very good way to distinguish between other fish in the sea,” says Eric Parmentier at the University of Liege in Belgium, who conducted the research.

In loud coral reef environments where there are lots of overlapping sounds, the development of a new and different sound is the best way to avoid misidentification, he says.

Scientists aren’t yet sure how P. amboinensis makes the wiping sound, but given its high frequency (645 herz), they have ruled out muscle contractions.

Listen to the pops and chirps below:

Read more: Ocean commotion: Protecting sea life from our noise; Zoologger: The only fish that cries like a baby