Answer: Coquí Frog

Frog calls, by their very nature, tend to be loud. Frogs use their calls primarily to attract mates, and if you’re too quiet to notify potential mates that you’re available, then you’ll die childless and the loudest of your cohorts will populate the Earth in your absence.

But even among the deep and loud twang of the American bullfrog’s call and the shrill and repetitive call of the spring peeper, there’s a frog that stands out as exceptionally loud: the coquí frog, native to Puerto Rico. There are several species of coquí frogs, but the group is onomatopoeically named after the loud call made by the common coquí and the mountain coquí, which sounds like “ko-kee”!

Very loud might be something of an understatement, in fact. The coquí can fire off a call that is capable of peaking at 85-100 decibels from three feet (one meter) away. While the locals in Puerto Rico seem to be relatively used to hearing the loud calls, the species is an invasive one in Hawaii and the locals are not particularly happy about it. They describe the experience of trying to sleep with the coquí frogs nearby being comparable to a lawnmower running outside their bedroom window all night.